Wow. I've never been in a hurricane or a tornado before, but what we endured Wednesday night into Thursday must be (I imagine) what it feels like. I have never seen anything like it. We were awakened just before 2:00 a.m. from scary, house-shaking winds. Normally, even during extremely windy or rainy times, we don't hear a thing. Our house is solid and sturdy and I feel so safe and protected in it. And as the winds were howling, I was so grateful to be in our home. But it was scary!
After the winds began around 2:00, each of the girls came traipsing into our bedroom, about 20 minutes apart. Quentin and I scooted over and let them into our bed - until all 3 of them were there, so I offered to let them stay with Quentin and I would sleep in Kiera's bed. But it was so noisy and my heart was pounding so I couldn't sleep.
After tossing and turning, I got up at 4:00 and watched the news. Pretty soon every one else was up and we watched it together. Then at 6:00 the power went out.
I thought the storm wouldn't seem so scary once the sun came up, but I almost think it was worse because we could see all the damage that was going on. We would go from the east side of the house to the south side to the west side and it seemed like every time we looked out the window we could see more damage to our neighbor's homes. Across the street, 3 huge trees that have been there for 30 years toppled over. Shingles were flying everywhere, and we could see them peeling and flying off our neighbor's roof. It was horrible. At one point, we were pretty sure all the rocking of one of our flowering pear trees would cause it to topple. Looking at the grass surrounding the tree, it looked like ocean waves. It was so weird, but our tree survived. In fact, we didn't lose any trees - thank goodness.
Needless to say, Quentin didn't go to work (he was afraid if we opened the door from the house into the garage it would change the air pressure and our garage door would be sucked in) and the girls stayed home from school - we later found out that all schools in Centerville were closed. I even cancelled my preschool class for the day.
So the storm started just before 2:00 a.m and the winds didn't die down till after 12:30 p.m. It was just constant, horrible wind - with
gusts up to 102 (that's Category 2 wind for hurricanes!) I guess Centerville got hit the worst.
After the wind started to die down (finally), we ventured out to assess the damage to our home, walk around the block to see our neighbors' homes, and chat with neighbors.
We were pretty lucky and our home fared pretty well compared to most of our neighbors. 6 sections of our ugly wood fence came down, our downspout and a few pieces of fascia and soffit disappeared, lots of shingles came off (but luckily there is another layer underneath, so our roof is still protected until we can replace the shingles), something hit the side of our stucco and made a big hole in it, a power line came down in our backyard and wrapped around our peach tree, and perhaps the worst damage was that our garage door was bowed in about a foot. Check it out:
(SHINGLES ALL OVER OUR GRASS)
Our tent trailer, which weighs a beastly amount, was actually pushed about 3 feet to the edge of the retaining wall that it sits on. The thing we bought to hold the wheel tight scraped along the driveway as it blew.
As we checked out our block and neighboring streets, I thought it was weird how huge trees could be blown over like they were toothpicks, but small Christmas decorations (like plastic candy canes lining the driveway) were left untouched. It was just weird what the storm did and where it hit the hardest.
Here are some of our neighbors' homes:
And here's a few pics of homes on streets near our house:
This is my grandma's neighbor's house, a mobile home. It was unbelievable that Grandma's house was just fine, except for an awning that came off - but then right next to her was this:
It was a freaky storm! Our power was off beginning at 6:00 a.m. and we were told to be prepared to be without power for up to 48 hours. We have a gas fireplace and would have been fine to sleep in front of it, but my mom tempted us with a warm dinner at her house and offered to let us stay overnight. We had only slept about 3 hours the night before and I really didn't want another sleepless night in a cold home, so we went over to Mom's. Around 7:30 we talked to some of our neighbors and they let us know the power was back on. It would have made sense for us to go back home, but the girls were so excited to stay at Granny's house overnight, so we did. At least we had a soft place to land after such a crazy day!
Today (Friday) we spent the day picking up shingles and twigs and debris out of our yard, straightening our porch lights, and contacting our insurance company. I'm amazed how something like this can make us be so aware of things we take for granted (electricity, a warm home, a good night's sleep, etc.) and be grateful for safety and security!
Oh, and check out these cute little birds that were holding on for dear life during the storm. There was no break at all in the wind so they couldn't fly - they just had to stay where they were!
