A Very Blustery Day
October 26, 2001
7:33 a.m.
In the category of unplanned events:   It was dark when I picked Brigid up at the library Wednesday. Not dark as in night, but dark as in really cloudy with ugly storms in the sky. We got in the car and started home. Maybe half way, the wind got to howling, and the rain started in. Before you know it, we were in the middle of a really hard storm with all the construction equipment falling over and the trees whipping back and forth. The rain poured like buckets of ball bearing hitting the roof. The local AM radio was nothing but fuzz. Then it was over. Or, at least the bulk of it was done. It still rained pretty hard, but the wind was gone. On the rest of the drive home, we saw trees that had been ripped from the ground and signs that were torn up. Traffic was backed up due to both debris in the road and huge flash flood puddles. When we got home, Lisa came out on the front porch with our cat locked up in its carrying case. "A tree fell on our house," she said. And the hits just kept on rolling from there. Lots of roof shingles gone. The tree hit our porch, not the "real" house, so we were really okay there. The electricity was out, and the ground was soaked. What this means is that our sump pump was slowly filling with drainage water, but the pump wasn't powered enough to get the water out. It also means we couldn't see the TV to get the weather reports. Of course, there's the radio--but it turned out not to be a lot of help. I spent an hour or so bailing out our sump pump to keep the basement dry. Let me tell you how hard of work that is though, carrying big buckets of water up the stairs and then back down for awhile. Yes, I could have done it a lot longer, and I certainly wold have. At one point I was complaining to myself, then I actually thought about those guys on the WTC pile, and suddenly I felt pretty danged childish. Still, there was no happier guy than me to see the electricity come back on and the pump kick in. I stood there for several minutes, just watching it work. Anyway, the good news is that no one is hurt, and the damage is really nowhere near as bad as it could have been. The tree pretty much trashed the porch screens, but doesn't appear to have done structural damage. And the shingles need replacing, but there doesn't appear to be any issue with the decking. So the house if fine. And we're fine. Life is good. Needless to say, I didn't get much in the line of writing done. Have a great day, though!  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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