Apparently, we have just felt the remnants of Hurricane Ike. We knew that the rain was coming and it poured Friday night and most of Saturday, but we were not prepared for the winds. There were no weather warnings on the tv until well after 8pm, but by that point most of us were without power anyhow.
Our power went out around 7pm last night. I called dad to see if he still had power over in Howland and he did, so we piled in the car at 7:30 and drove over there to watch the Browns game. Wouldn't you know that on our way there I got a call from mom that said, "Hey, our power just went out too". LOL Since we were already on our way we decided to go there anyhow. We sat on the front porch and tried to cool off because it was soooo muggy and the wind was actually hot. Dad brought out his radio and his 3 inch (yes I said INCH) portable tv. We listened to the first quarter of the game and took turns watching the mini screen. Jake was not happy though. He was scared of the wind and wanted to go home. Since the Steelers scored and the Browns were not making me happy, we went home. Driving home was crazy though. Most of the traffic signals were without power and the roads were littered with branches and other debris. We got home and our power was still out, therefor we could not open the garage door. Our entire town was dark , so seriously it was pitch black outside. From the headlights of the van I could see that we had a big branch on the garage roof. I said, quite casually, "oh look, we lost a big branch". Then I got out of the van and walked along using my cell phone as a light and found that I couldn't open the gate to our back yard. I peered through there with my very poor flashlight phone and said, "ohhhh man, it's a whole tree and it's blocking the door". We went around to the front door and got the lantern (I highly recommend keeping a big camp lantern within close range at all times. It's annoying and collects dust most of the time, but in a moment like that- it's your best friend in the world).
Micah and I crept our way around branches at the back door to get around the tree and we were horrified and fascinated by what we saw. Our giant maple tree had split in half. Half of the tree was still standing and the other half actually split into 2 halves and fell in 2 different directions. We couldn't really see to much because it was dark, but we saw enough to feel lucky!! Our power came back on and we got to watch the last 2 quarters of the Browns/Steelers game on our beautiful 47" LCD HDTV screen. ahhhhh...to bad the Browns disappointed me yet again!
This morning I went out and took pictures. It's pretty fascinating when you look at these shots. Consider the fact that my neighbors built a new garage in June this year and look where that tree fell. What are the odds that it didn't fall on my garage or their garage? God was taking care of that for sure!
Can you believe how that split?
Micah is standing there to help show the size of the tree.
This branch came through the roof of our garage.
3 comments:
GEEZ!! Here I am IN TEXAS and we did not get a drop of rain! NOT A DROP! The clouds looked neat, and it was a LITTLE windy -- but not nearly that windy. It got really gross hot here too! Today it dropped about 30 degrees and everyone was so excited! lol
Crazy!! I saw the govenor of Ohio on the news tonight and he said that only 1/3 of the traffic lights in the entire state are currently working and that 70% of Ohio lost power at some point. There are still a lot of communities without power and they are predicting that they won't have power until Thursday. BUT at least the temp dropped back down to 68...it's niiiiice outside.
Wow that's crazy! You guys really do have someone looking out for you to have it split so perfectly like that. You got enough damage to warrant calling your homeowners insurance and getting a new roof on the garage, at least. A lot of my friends in Ohio were saying they lost power too. What a storm!
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