We had our first BIG storm of Monsoon season 2007 last night. We had some damage to the ground in front of our home, but many of our neighbors had lots of damage.
It hit about 9:45 pm last night & right after we gathered our flashlight & candles we lost power. We turned the switches to off on everything we could & turned the AC unit off via the battery controlled digital thermostat. Then the rain hit & hit HARD! It had to be blowing parallel to the ground because we had water coming in around our doors & many of our windows! I used every towel, clean or dirty, to stop the water from coming into our house. My husband had to stand at the Arcadia door & hold it. It was jiggling around so much he was afraid it was going to break! As he stood there, our screen door was flung through the air like a feather in a windstorm. Once the rain & lightening pretty much stopped, my DH went outside. I was at the door with a flashlight & he was out in the mud with his. We found our big trash can, the kind a truck comes & empties, out by our car. The Little Tikes slide & stairs were at the opposite side of the house they started at. The little Tikes airplane see saw toy travelled down one side of our house & came to a stop in our front yard. The Little Tikes Red Coup travels were only cut short by our neighbors chain link fence. Did I mention that was the neighbor across the street& the car started in our back yard? We don't live on a tiny piece of city property either. We live on 1.25 acres of ruralish land. Thanks to the tunnels built by round tailed squirrels recently, we now have a gaping hole in our front yard as well. We got off easy though. By the way, we never found our screen door.
Most of the property is the same size as ours. The neighbors behind us lost ALL of their wooden fences The neighbor kiddy korner from them lost ALL of their CINDER BLOCK fences! Others sheds ranged from having been turned over like a toy all the way to being in twisted pieces strewn over a 1/2 mile radius. One family lost their backyard trampoline, all of their patio furniture & the metal awning that covers their patio. The front window of their truck was shattered by some large flying object & their 2nd car wasdmaged by something else in the wind. Someone else's awning survived but the wind gifted them with a full size truck bed liner & it had been wedged under the awning. Several homes have lost shingles or even have holes in their roof. Like I said above, we got off easy.
After the storm subsided , we were all without power. We saw many flash lights & heard neighbors shouting to us & others, "Are you okay over there?" & "Do you need any help?". I think most of the clean-up has to wait until insurance adjusters make their way to the homes here. The Direct TV repairmen were busy as bees here yesterday. Power did finally come back on at 6 am. We got Liz ready for school & proceeded as usual. I did allow extra time to get to school though because I didn't know what condition the roads would be in. I tried to approach her school from the south & found the road blocked off. The northern approach was blocked off as well. Several power poles were down or falling down. Even those HUGE, thick metal ones were down. I drove to the district office & found that school was being held for my daughter's school someplace else. We got directions & headed that way. She ended up being 20 minutes late, but due to the extreme weather, she won't be counted as tardy. There were many others that were late as well. It will be a complete zoo going to pick her up from school today. I told her I may be a little late, but I WILL be there to pick her up. Since she is so little, the school doesn't let kids go home without a parent or without being walked out to their bus. They put stickers on each little one's shirt that says the bus they get onto or if they are being picked up by a parent. Then they check off the students names as they are picked up from school. I will be leaving an hour before school gets out, allowing for extra time to get to the school at the opposite end of the city & probable traffic detours. It looks like classes for her school will be held at the new school for at least the next 2 days.
Let's just hope we don't get pummeled again tonight. If we are, I don't think we will be lucky again. We have a lot of earth to move this weekend. Neighbors would probably help, but their homes are in need of attention as well. I know that if the little one would have been even 2 years older, I would have been helping a neigbor collect all of theri scattered wood fenncing. I did help for about 20 minutes with one hand by picking up single pieces of fence post. The little one was holding of my hands or was riding on my hip while I was doing that. I fit is cool enough, I will probably be picking up misc. shingles of all colors that were depositied in my yard. Items also in my yard are a metal realtor sign, a large piece of bubble wrap, large pieces of cardboard & full cans of paint. What fun huh?
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