A commercial on TV years ago for Lender’s Bagels always made me laugh and has become a family joke. When the husband comes into the house and his wife offers a bagel, he replies with obvious surprise and delight “A bagel? Just for putting on a roof?!?”
Unfortunately our new roof and downspouts, new siding shingles and paint job, and power washing and re-staining our deck will cost more than a bagel. Maybe it’s common knowledge to others around here, but it was news to me, apparently ‘the Denver area is to hailstorms what Florida is to hurricanes’ (a direct quote from our insurance claims adjuster).
Which reminds me, we used to live in Florida, and when we moved there in March of 2004 people assured us… ‘Oh no, you don’t have to worry about hurricanes, we’ve lived here 25 years and never been through a hurricane.’ But the house came with metal corrugated hurricane shutters and the doors all open out, just in case.
That August we got a crash course in hurricane preparation when we learned that we were in the ‘cone of uncertainty’ of possible landfall for hurricane Frances. Screwing all the metal hurricane shutters onto the exterior of the house to cover every window and sliding glass door took us over 6 hours. I stood in line for over an hour and a half to fill up our propane tanks for the BBQ grill. We debated purchasing a generator for backup power, and our church organized everyone to check up on each other after the hurricane had passed through. Milk, bread and other staples were scarce or gone from grocery store shelves, and as I was waiting in line to make our purchases, I glanced at the carts of the people around me, curious as to what others would buy to ride out the storm. I wasn’t sure what to think of the lady with her cart full of bottles of alcohol, chocolate and toilet paper, but every cart was piled high with ‘essentials’.
Our friends who were also fairly new to Florida came over to our house on the big day to weather the storm because they were on the edge of the evacuation zone and we had hurricane shutters, and although it made our house cavelike we felt safe and excited, ready for the adventure. As the kids played, we listened to the emergency radio on the front porch, watched the rain pour down and the wind blow the trees around and we shared vital emergency foods like Oreos, oysters and Nutella.
As the saying goes…its all fun and games until someone loses an eye or a limb. In our case the limb was lost by our tree as it came crashing down on our garage and friends car, smashing their back window. So we hurried out to cover it with a tarp and settled into the waiting game. When the neighborhood transformer blew and the electricity went out there wasn’t much left to do but go to sleep. Unfortunately for our friends the room they were staying in got scary so they moved into the living room for the rest of the night. The next morning we awoke to the calm after the storm and went out to survey the damage.
Piles and piles of yard debris, damaged roof, no electricity, no air conditioning, and no refrigerator or school for over a week. Hot, humid, mosquitoes, curfew, boredom etc. The aftermath of Hurricane Frances was much more tedious than the storm, but we got to know our neighbors as everyone stacked tree branches and yard waste out front for pickup, grilled up meat and anything perishable from the soon to be stinking fridge and offered out extras to be shared before they spoiled, and we checked on each other and discussed the damage. Besides the necessary cleanup, after a hurricane is also an excellent time to find different shells on the beach from the roiling ocean and we found some beauties for our collection. But when our friends finally had their electricity restored we rushed over to their house to bask in the relief of cool-conditioned air.
Well we could have chalked that up to our hurricane adventure if we hadn’t been in the ‘cone of uncertainty’ again 3 weeks later for Hurricane Jeanne. Again with the hurricane shutters (this time it only took us 5 hours), again with the propane tanks, again with stocking up on supplies, again with the dark and humid and hot and power outages, but this time, after the storm had passed we loaded up the car and took advantage of the temporarily free toll roads and no school and went to DisneyWorld!
I suppose a variety of lessons can be learned from experiencing storms, but the main lessons I learned are… be prepared if you must weather the storm and Get Out! If you can possibly go anywhere else, do it. After two hurricanes during our year and a half in Florida we packed up for a job transfer to move to California to take our chances with earthquakes.
So this summer hailstorm, while I was surprised the windows didn’t break, was just another storm that we have weathered, which reminds me of a line from one of my favorite hymns… “And when the tempest rages high I feel no arm around me thrust, but ev’ry storm goes rolling by when I repose in Him my trust.
After the Tempest
Sky brilliantly nonchalant,
indifferent to the havoc
wreaked last night,
as I mourn stripped bare,
never to produce again stems.
Detritus blockades nearby streams
washing away tiny graves,
while neighbors rush to sweep up proof
that they lack control.
Yet I search for some higher meaning
in the heap of branches
that didn’t hang on through the storm,
the lesson shambolic.
~ Elizabeth Caldwell Grant
