They'd known about the storm for a couple of days, since Monday in fact. It hadn't been a severe storm to start with and the upgrade had happened on Wednesday. The evacuation order was given on Wednesday afternoon with an emphasis on an orderly departure from the coast.

It was anything but orderly.

By Thursday afternoon the military were involved in the operation to empty the hospitals, maintain order, clear the roads and rescue trapped individuals. This was due to the panic, traffic accidents, arguments, violence and everyday issues of civil disobedience. The police couldn't, or wouldn't, cope.

Everyone was watching the clock, but one person was watching it very closely. The storm was due at lunchtime on Friday, it wasn't long now.

The media were still there on Thursday, getting as close to the beach as their producer wanted them. The weather boys and girls weren't used to being this close to real weather and weren't coping well, but their producer said it made great tv. Their hourly updates repeated the same, officially approved text: it wasn't going to be a smooth ride, there was a risk to man, woman or any other sentient being, and structural failure was likely. Oh, and it wasn't long now before it was due to hit.

The local government officials had long since gone and were making brave statements from fifty miles away, somehow they were promising the funds to rebuild when a week earlier there had been no spare funds.

By ten on Friday morning the warnings had ended, the patrols had been removed and the media was a long way from the beach using remote cameras. The beach was deserted, there wasn't a soul to be seen. The sky was devoid of birds, or even clouds right now and, strangely enough, the wind was dropping.

It wasn't long now, they said on the radio, not long now.

She opened the door of her shack and looked across the beach, but there wasn't much to see. She tugged on the ropes that would hold the roof down and checked the knots. This wasn't the first storm she'd seen on this and it possibly wouldn't be the last.

Her beach-front property was a thorn in the side of local government and local organised crime. The beach had been owned by the people since the first folk had settled here, over a century ago. Then the council decided they owned it, on behalf of the people. Then the council sold the beach to some property managers. Those nice property managers, the ones with Italian names, then rented the beach back to the town's people.

So the beach remained a public beach, so long as everyone paid their rent. Failure to pay was not recommended.

She'd been here for thirty or forty years, no-one could be sure. Her land wasn't quite on the beach and she had title of her little parcel plot. She also had a covenant from the council giving her access to the beach in front of her plot.

There had been attempts, many, to remove her but the council had been unwilling to go beyond legal means. The courts had tossed out the case, her paperwork was in order and pre-dated any business arrangements with property managers.

The property managers hadn't worried about legal methods when bullying, threats and violence would suffice. She wasn't one to be bullied and knew a thug when she saw one. She'd reported them to the police as her insurance required she report vandalism. It was quite simple, every time a window was broken she replaced it, so it could be broken again.

The policeman who came to visit had offered the services of his brother, for a regular fee, to stop the windows being broken. She'd tossed him out.

And so it went on.

The wind was increasing, the waves were being whipped up and the trees were bent double, not long at all now.

She remembered the day when those nice property managers had paid her a visit, their expensive suits looking quite inappropriate on the beach. They'd offered her a reasonable price for her plot of land. At least they claimed it was reasonable, she had her doubts.

They'd offered her a long term lease on a beach-front property about one minute away; the sale value of her plot wouldn't even cover three months at peak season. She'd declined, graciously of course.

They were upset, naturally, and chided her for her missed opportunity. Apparently that lease offer wasn't going to be available for long, too good an offer to miss they claimed. She declined but thanked them for their time, there was no need to be rude.

That night her power had gone off, the electric company said it would cost a few thousand to replace the entire run of cable from the distribution box, plus the damage caused when she'd ripped the copper out.

She'd laughed, she needed a stick to walk and arthritis prevented her from getting up if she got down - disco dancing was a distant memory.

She'd been expecting something like this for a while, there was a rumour that all the managed leases were due to expire at the end of the season so by the spring a new apartment block would be on the site. She had a fallback supply, using a truck battery and a turbine, that would do for now.

She was the only unmanaged property and the beach-front pool would be where her shack was. Of course she'd only found out about the plans by accident, the registered letter from the planners had never arrived.

The windows were rattling, the last broken pane had been fixed on Tuesday. The roof was shaking, but wasn't going anywhere. Not long now.

She was a cynic, and no one could blame her. Of course, everyone did blame her; she was holding up economic development, they said. She'd laughed, they were all reading from the same script.

She'd tried talking to the press but that was pointless, she was the villain of the beach, the mad old woman.

She had spent her days writing, not plotting. She'd had this idea for a novel that wasn't going to write itself. It had taken twenty years, sat in the doorway of her shack with a notebook, scribbling words and making notes. Once it was finished she'd sat on it, literally, as it went under her mattress for safe keeping.

Eventually she'd found an agent, one from the city who didn't know about local politics. She didn't want to leave her shack so the agent came to the beach, unsure what to expect.

A month, or six, later her novel was in print. A year later a film studio had taken options on the story. That was some time ago, but the film was finally out this weekend. Ironically, the local cinema was closed because of the weather. Her bank account was healthy, very healthy.

The wind was really blowing as she locked her shack and walked away.

She'd enjoyed her time in the shack, but there was nothing there to keep her. Not long now.

A vehicle approached and stopped to pick her up.

"To your hotel and then the première, Madam?"

"Sure, but be quick as we don't have long now."