6-22-10... some excitement in the 'hood

On Thursday the 17th of June, we knew that there was going to be some severe weather in the area. Ted went into work at about 4:45 p.m. to help his co-worker Randy with the evening newscasts, and I picked up Madeleine from daycare. We watched as the radar tracked progress of storms across the viewing area, and listened to the reports trickle in that there were tornadoes. At no point did I EVER imagine that our street would soon be the hot topic for news.

At about 9:15, Madeleine and I were cuddling and comforting each other while the winds whipped up and thunder and lightening roared. All of the sudden, we heard a huge BAM and I set down Madeleine and looked out on our deck. Our patio table had been lifted up, hit our kitchen window and broken into two pieces on the deck. After I saw that, I scooped up Madeleine and headed downstairs. By this time, our power had been flickering on and off, and we lost our cable signal. It was pretty scary!!

Once downstairs, we talked to our neighbors on the phone and began to get a better idea of what had happened. What we thought was just strong winds turned out to be an EF1 tornado. As the night wore on, we realized how EXTREMELY lucky we were! First we found out our next door neighbors (the Mirehouses) had two big trees down. Then we saw that their boulevard tree was down too - and as the rain let up and we were able to see more of the neighborhood, we saw that there were garages blown out, roofs ripped off, and general chaos around us. Fire trucks came to address gas leaks, police came to do wellness checks and make sure people were OK. Ted finally came home around 10:00 and we walked around in a daze.

On Friday, the police set up barriers and questioned everyone who wanted to drive down our street - they were mostly there to keep the "tourists" away so workers could get initial clean-up efforts under way. Luckily, our insurance adjuster came out to see our neighbor, and then stopped over to see if we were home too. Thank goodness I was!! We walked around the house with the roofing and siding guys, and our adjuster signed off on a new roof, new siding, new gutters/downspouts, shutters and a new kitchen window. We picked out colors and got on the list for repairs. Our adjuster said to get on the roofers schedule ASAP before they got too booked up.

In the middle of the mayhem, was Father's Day. Ironically, Madeleine and I had gotten daddy a funny shirt for his gift. You'll see the picture below - but it really hits quite close to home. We had to give it to him a day early so he could wear it on Saturday. On Sunday, we had a nice time at church, came home and made daddy quiche and spent a lazy afternoon playing and baking while daddy practiced with his band-mate Henry. Sunday night was a special dinner of Chicago-style pizza (Ted's favorite!).

Today (Tuesday), our new roof went on! It was supposed to go up yesterday, but the chance of rain pushed it to today. We knew we were moving fast on repairs, but Ted's co-workers actually did a news story on our roof because we were the very first roof to be replaced. They said that because our insurance guy was there so fast, we were able to slip in while other folks waited for approval to start repair work. We're very, VERY lucky! Our window has been ordered, and we'll get the siding when the window comes in. Until then, we have a very chic board over the broken glass. So that's our exciting couple of days. Tonight, we took a family walk and again thanked our lucky stars that we were all OK and still able to stroll around the neighborhood - and that we have a home to come home to! Well - enough with this novel - we hope you enjoy the pictures and appreciate God and nature's powers!