Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Tempest

I  thought the storms we had last week were bad, but the one we had overnight was the worst I've seen in a long time. Admittedly, it wasn't whole magnitudes worse than last week's, but it did more damage.

At least a dozen houses have large swaths of shingles missing. Many of the additions we've built onto some of the houses, like enclosed porches, have had their walls broken. The worst of it is the observation tower that rises from the middle of the big hill. It got hit by lightning. Not damaged enough that it fell, thank god, and there was obviously no one in it when the strike hit, but it isn't usable right now.

One of the main legs of the tower is cracked and splintered about three-fourths the way through. If it breaks and comes apart, the whole thing will fall and probably topple onto a house. We've evacuated the surrounding homes for the time being, which makes for tighter quarters than usual.

My brother estimates that with a team of decent carpenters he can completely repair the tower in about three days. That's not so long for the folks that live nearby to hunker down and double up in beds. The problem is that there are other, more vital fixes that need to be seen to.

The tower took the worst damage, but the largest threat is the beating the wall took. The storm came in from the west, and that section of the wall is riddled with small breaks and missing boards. At first glance none of them are large enough for a zombie to get through, but now that it's daylight a better look can be taken at the integrity of the thing. My guess is that for every obvious gap, there's probably a cracked board or loose log that couldn't be seen in the dark. I'm wondering if we didn't get hit by the edge of a tornado given how much debris is laying around.

It's a lot of work, and I seem to be saying that a lot lately. The spring storms here are stronger than most years, and that's causing us a lot of grief. As always, we'll put forth some extra effort and get the repairs done as best we can.

I'm just hoping the April showers are nearly over. Our people need a nice, long period of calm to rest up.

No comments:

Post a Comment