Our road to normalcy is proving to be a very long slow road, but at least we've covered a few miles. Since my last post we have gotten a water damage restoration crew to dry the house out (16 powerful fans, 6 industrial dehumidifiers and an air scrubber running for 96 hours straight, plus just about everything ripped out of the second floor), and we got the windows replaced. The insurance adjuster finally came out Sunday morning but was only able to write us a check and re-assign us to a higher level adjuster since she was not equipped to assess our level of damages. I must have called them 3-4 times to update my claim with descriptions of the increasing severity of the damages we noticed, but they apparently would not believe me or my agent. Now our claim is escalated to the $35000+ level and another agent is coming out on Wednesday so that we can maybe finally get a roofing crew out here. The good news is they do seem to be willing to pay for a lot of small things like spoiled food losses and even to compensate us for all the time we've spent cleaning up debris and removing wet floors and ceilings.
To add to the misery, now our A/C isn't working. It's included on the claim and our agent got us a repair service to come out tomorrow, but right now it's the 5 of us sleeping in the master bedroom with a portable A/C. It's kind of like living in a one-bedroom apartment within our home.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Hurricane Ike Aftermath
We got hit hard by Hurricane Ike. Thankfully I have yet to hear of anyone that got hurt in our area, but our neighborhood was slammed by what a lot of people are saying must have been tornadoes spawned by the storm since the inland winds were not supposed to be that fierce.
I never slept much at all during the storm, listening to every wind gust and watching the clock. At 4:25am, the power went out and the real nightmare began. We heard a horribly loud whistling wind gust followed by a thud louder than anything I've heard before. We went upstairs with a flashlight but the only thing we could see was a partially broken window an Harrison's room. There were no trees on it, and there no visibility outside so we went back down the bedroom. From that point on every wind gust caused all kinds of knocks and thumps on the roof, so we knew something was up there.
At around 6-ish, I was just drifting off to sleep when the window in our bedroom shattered. We rushed all the boys to the hall bathroom and stayed there. During a slight lull, Lindsay went back upstairs with the flashlight and saw the leak in the game room and what looked like the tip of a tree branch poking through the ceiling. We put a bucket under that leak and retreated back to the bathroom to wait for daylight.
When the eye came over, it was daylight and one of our neighbors came over to check on us and to let us know there was a tree on our house. That's when I got the first look from the outside and that's when I went ahead and called in our insurance claim. The only remaining damage we sustained was when the top of the pine tree in the yard behind us came down and smashed the fence right behind the swing set. That was around 9am and I happened to be checking out of that window at the time and watched the whole thing fall.
I never slept much at all during the storm, listening to every wind gust and watching the clock. At 4:25am, the power went out and the real nightmare began. We heard a horribly loud whistling wind gust followed by a thud louder than anything I've heard before. We went upstairs with a flashlight but the only thing we could see was a partially broken window an Harrison's room. There were no trees on it, and there no visibility outside so we went back down the bedroom. From that point on every wind gust caused all kinds of knocks and thumps on the roof, so we knew something was up there.
At around 6-ish, I was just drifting off to sleep when the window in our bedroom shattered. We rushed all the boys to the hall bathroom and stayed there. During a slight lull, Lindsay went back upstairs with the flashlight and saw the leak in the game room and what looked like the tip of a tree branch poking through the ceiling. We put a bucket under that leak and retreated back to the bathroom to wait for daylight.
When the eye came over, it was daylight and one of our neighbors came over to check on us and to let us know there was a tree on our house. That's when I got the first look from the outside and that's when I went ahead and called in our insurance claim. The only remaining damage we sustained was when the top of the pine tree in the yard behind us came down and smashed the fence right behind the swing set. That was around 9am and I happened to be checking out of that window at the time and watched the whole thing fall.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Ike Update
Wind gusts are picking up, and we're about 2-3 hours from the heaviest. Our area is still only supposed to get maximum sustained winds of 55 knots which is under hurricane strength, so I'm not so worried about the pines (which are all very tall, established and healthy). When we weathered Rita, there was a tree in our yard with a big weird horizontal branch that knocked into the roof right over our bed all night. We don't have that problem in this house, so I'm hoping I'll get a better night's sleep than I did with Rita.
Anyways, the boys are asleep in our room, the hurricane parties are winding down and I'm unplugging all expensive electronics.
Anyways, the boys are asleep in our room, the hurricane parties are winding down and I'm unplugging all expensive electronics.
Hurricane Ike
We're all set to ride out the hurricane. Everything that isn't attached to the ground is secured in the ground and we're stocked up. Not really expecting anything more than high winds and heavy rains where we are. The primary concern is the storm surge zone, which we aren't a part of.
The evacuation was much more orderly and organized than the disappointing fiasco we experience when Tropical Storm Rita hit. We even ran out today to fill the Sequoia up with gas, grab a few more things from Wal-Mart and had lunch at Wendy's.
The winds are just now gusting up, so we just have to hopefully sleep from 1am to 7am and then we're good. The eye path forecast as plotted on Google Maps shows it passing just a couple miles east of us and curving more to the east so maybe we'll mostly get winds from the North and not quite so much rain.
The evacuation was much more orderly and organized than the disappointing fiasco we experience when Tropical Storm Rita hit. We even ran out today to fill the Sequoia up with gas, grab a few more things from Wal-Mart and had lunch at Wendy's.
The winds are just now gusting up, so we just have to hopefully sleep from 1am to 7am and then we're good. The eye path forecast as plotted on Google Maps shows it passing just a couple miles east of us and curving more to the east so maybe we'll mostly get winds from the North and not quite so much rain.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
First Day of School
Last Monday was Harrison's first day of school, now today was Sawyer's first day of preschool. Harrison has a nice big classroom with less students, computers in the classroom and even some fancy stuff like a 'Smart-Board' that appears to be a digital whiteboard that they are using as a learning tool. Sawyer learned that today was Tuesday, he did some artwork (painting with marbles), sang songs (head, shoulders, knees & toes and the monkeys jumping on the bead song) and he even learned 'uno mono', for 'one monkey'. He had a really great day and was excited to go back on Thursday.
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