After lunch, I volunteered to make the 2 hour drive down Interstate 75. The whole way, our little Corolla was getting pushed around by the wind. Anyone who knows 75 knows it is notorious for endless construction projects. This created new dangers, as orange barrels were blowing across the high way and I had to play dodge the barrel bottoms laying in the lanes. One barrel was particularly menacing, as it was spinning around on the side of the highway and then lunged toward the high speed lane at me (I didn't even attempt to even go the speed limit anyway as the wind was so strong and creating a ton of resistance..I wanted to be in the high speed lane so people wouldn't swerve over at me). I slowed down and luckily the traffic behind me did too. I saw a few people swerving, but then it went back over to the side again and came to a rest.
Back at home, it looked like a war zone. Power was out everywhere, and barely any gas stations or stores were open. Signs were blown out at many stores, trees and limbs were down everywhere, we saw a concrete bench at a bus stop that had been blown out part way into the street. Downed power lines had roads closed everywhere. Our house already had storm damage and we had just found a company to make repairs. We almost didn't want to know how much the "big, bad wolf" had blown down at our house now. The wind was starting to slow down, making us glad we had no left any earlier than we did.
When we got home, a boy next door held up a shingle and told us it blew off our house. Our other neighbor was out and said she tried to move more of our siding back into our yard and felt really bad for us. Then we looked, and saw lots of shingles tossed around and that a fairly large portion of siding was now down. Our roof is too high for me to see that damage. What was once a $300 repair was probably at least $3000 now. Of course that is the last thing we need right now, but that is what insurance is for and it really could have been a lot worse. I already called in a claim, and hope it will get fixed before the baby arrives. It was cool to see the brick underneath the siding. It gave us a better idea of what our 95 year-old house used to look like before someone "modernized" it. We tried to secure a few loose items, but then moved away since other siding could fly off without warning at any minute. Another house in the area had a far worse problem: it had a metal roof the wind just had peeled back like a tin can. They were up there securing it even as it got dark.
Our house had no power, no phone, no internet. We gathered our candles and lighters. My cell phone was beeping low battery and Michael's was also low. The storm was calming down, so we carefully drove around charging the phones on Michael's power converter that plugs into the car's cigarette lighter. The danger passed, and now there was just debris and destruction all over. We discovered the power was out everywhere, except down town. No one seemed to know you treat intersections where the power was out like four-way stops. We finally found an open gas station, but it had a line. Nearby, we also saw firefighters putting out a fire in an old building. It was crazy! We called both our parents to let them know what was going on and my parents area was in a similar state. We heard at least 75% (over 600,000 homes) in our area were without power yesterday night.
We got home before dark and opened the windows. Thankfully it was cool outside now, because it was 80 degrees in the house. We have a gas stove, so we lit that and made spaghetti for dinner. The candlelight created a cool atmosphere, and we actually had fun. We sat together with lots of candles, and I wrote in my pregnancy journal a little as Michael was looking through one of his train books. We finally went to bed around 10pm, and said a prayer all the food in our freezer could be saved since we knew it could be days before power was fully restored (we were glad we didn't have much food in the fridge to worry about). Hundreds of thousands are still without power now, so I was thankful to notice the clock and outside lights were on at our house around 2:30 am this morning.
Here is what Ike did to our house. Moderate damage, thankfully. I can only imagine what it was like to be here in the middle of all that.
can see shingles are missing, but cannot see to what extent
1 comment:
yIKEs! We did not have that where I am located, thankfully!!! WE had a period of heavy rain. The wind was constant at 25-30 mph and gustier at times, but I saw no damage like you and Mom describe. Glad you are both okay!
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