Sandy aftermath

We were well prepared for Hurricane Sandy. Water in bowls, refrigerator turned low and things stored away that might blow away in the wind. The wind started up in the morning and I kept tracking the hurricane on the National Hurricane Center. It looked like we were going to be pretty close to the expected path of the storm which was heading through our county all day.

In the afternoon the wind picked up and at 5:10 pm the electricity went out. I had all the food ready to cook and because we have a gas stove it was no problem preparing dinner by candlelight. At 6:10 pm a limb of a poplar tree fell down and the wind was quite strong now. We continued to sit and talk at the dining table by candlelight while listening to the really strong wind.

At 7:00 pm, there was an almighty bang on the roof.  We opened the back door and saw that most of the back deck was now lying on the ground and that there had been some damage to the roof overhang. Fortunately, all of our windows survived and there was still enough overhang to stop water leaking into the house.

Next day, we reported the damage to the insurance company. This is the tree that fell. The base is probably 8 feet in diameter. There were actually two trees, the huge black locust and a much smaller cherry tree that grew up next to each other. The black locust is a heavy hardwood.

The locust has two main trunks.

Here you get a sense of the missing back deck and the roof damage.

Just ripped it all right off.

It will be tricky repairing the roof. The overhand is like an empty box, but the sides that stick out from the house are part of the structure. The house is still sound as far as I can tell.

More of the tree.

Parts of the deck strewn all over the place.

You can see the box like structure of the overhang.

View down from the back door.

There was still some stuff on the deck in big plastic boxes.

The cherry tree.

The radio for our internet connection is on this railing. It survived though the cable didn't. I now have it set up in the bedroom.

The branch mangled the gate.

The TV antenna is no more. However Comcast is laying cable in the community so we are hoping for fast internet and more than two TV channels by Christmas.

My copper gate seemed to survive. In fact, the main thing is that we survived and we are in good spirits.

As things develop, I will update this blog.