Sep. 7--Howling winds send patio furniture whirlybirding off your porch.

Your neighbor's roof tiles, flying like shrapnel, shatter the windows on your house.

It feels like Ike, but it's really Mickey.

Walt Disney World's Epcot opened an exhibit late last month that lets park visitors experience a major hurricane. StormStruck: A Tale of Two Homes is what Disney calls "edu-tainment."

The storm is virtual, but realistic enough. Remember, it comes from the same folks who brought you Mission: Space and Soarin'.

The exhibit has thrills. But it's really meant to raise visitors' awareness of the havoc that Mother Nature can create and how they can protect their homes and families.

"You see the roof fail. You see the windows and doors give in. You even see water getting in through the soffits. That's how water got into my house" during Hurricane Andrew, said Max Mayfield, hurricane specialist for WPLG-ABC 10 and former director of the National Hurricane Center, who went through the exhibit just after it opened.

He said Disney got the details of a storm and the message right. "If you invited people to come to a seminar on how to mitigate their homes, they wouldn't come. This is going to help educate people on what they can do."

SPECIAL EFFECTS

The magic comes from special effects and computer-generated video. The education is provided by the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, or FLASH, which brought the exhibit idea to Disney seven years ago, and several sponsors -- Renaissance Re, a Bermuda-based reinsurer; State Farm Insurance; and Simpson Strong Tie, a Pleasanton, Calif., company that makes connectors and fasteners.

After viewing a short video featuring the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore, visitors don 3-D glasses and are ushered into the Severe Weather Replicator. A Disney "stormologist" tells the audience that he has a custom storm in store for them.

The hurricane plays out on two jumbo screens. Because it's 3-D, viewers are rocked by the wind (the seats move) and feel rain (real and virtual).

As the wind picks up, the patio furniture flies off the porch, and the swing set in the backyard breaks apart. You jump back at the sound of breaking glass -- the tiles from your neighbor's house just shattered your windows -- and your garage doors crumble under the push of the wind.

When the winds die down -- supposedly when the eye of the storm is passing through -- the stormologist returns, telling the visitors they have a few minutes to make changes that could make a difference in how well their homes survive during the second half of the storm.