Calgon, Take Me Away!!!

I've gotta say that I'm pretty tired of severe weather warnings.  It was last Thursday that the the tornado hit my street, and since then we've had a couple more tornado warnings, hail, and LOTS of rain.  In fact, my phone tells me that we have no sunshine headed our way for a while.  Boo!

Dislike

I can't remember if I mentioned this when I last blogged, but I finally talked to my Allstate agent on Monday.  I gave her until 10am to return my voicemail or email, but ended up having to call her again since she failed to meet my mental deadline.  It was interesting that she seemed so surprised to hear from me, but she took my information and informed me that a claims agent would be in touch with me in 2-3 days.  Other than that, all I learned from her was my deductible amount.  About five minutes after we hung up the phone, a lady in her office called my cell phone.  When I answered, she identified herself and told me she was returning my call.  Nice, right?  I did get a bit more information out of her.  She told me that if there were any way to cover the hole in the roof to do so.  The reason?  "Allstate won't want to pay for excessive damage"...... seriously.

Around 4pm on Monday I left work armed with a giant tarp.  I somehow convinced jtl to leave work and join me in my efforts to place the tarp on the roof.  I was so thankful for the help.  Gotta say that I probably have the best dressed handy man around.  I haven't seen any other guys working on my street in a tie. 

When he arrived, I had already gotten my ladder out and determined that it was not the best choice.  He confirmed my thoughts.  We had to borrow a ladder from my neighbor, but we managed to get the damage covered.  I still had no power at my house at this point.

Tuesday morning, I find out that the power is back on and AT&T is planning a service call to get the Uverse back up and running.  This requires an adult to be present, so I opted to take the day off work and spend it doing the chores that had piled up over the weekend.  I spent over an hour cleaning out my refrigerator, did multiple loads of laundry and went to buy groceries. 

By 4pm, AT&T still hadn't shown up and the sky had begun to cloud up AGAIN.  The wind had been pretty strong all day, but nothing too crazy.  The repairman showed up around 6, and had the cable  up around 7.  I think it was about this time that we notice that the wind has blown the tarp off of my house.  Great.  The lightning has begun and the rain is falling.  Tornado sirens begin not too long after, and Mk takes cover in the bathroom again.  I've gotta say that I was a bit frightened about what could happen with those two giant pines still standing over my house.  Luckily, we made it through two rounds of tornado warnings that night with only a little water standing in the sun room as the only noticeable change since the day before.

Day 1 of Water Building Up

 
Yesterday afternoon, the severe thunderstorms with hail began.  I don't think my car has any damage, but the change at my house is noticeable.  Given that the tarp had just blown off Tuesday night, I had not had a chance to get anyone back up there, and the rain and hail is not helping things.

Holes in the Roof

I finally heard from the claims agent last night.  He began by telling me that he understood I had "a little wind damage" to the back of my structure.  I told him that there is a hole in the back wall/roof of my sun room.  He then informs me that he is an inside claims specialist.  He apparently handles the minor claims that can be resolved with a phone call and no on site inspection.  I'm guessing my insurance agent didn't really pay attention to the part regarding the hole in the roof.  When he found out that the roof actually has rolled shingles, he quickly apologized and told me he has to refer my case to an outside claims specialist.  So now I wait for a new guy to call to schedule an inspection.  Good times.

Water Making it's Way into the Sun Room

The Damage a Week Later

Blurry Side View

 This morning, I took a few more pictures.  The rain has now begun to come through the ceiling in the sun room in one area, and the siding is slowly removing itself further along the back wall.  I'm so ready to have this whole situation resolved.  The tarp will be replaced today, and I'm hoping to get an estimate from a contractor in the next day or so.  One day at a time, right?  Sigh.

A New Week

Orange cones must be a sign of progress, right?  Too bad they're on the wrong side of the street!

I called Entergy's emergency outage number this morning and found out that power should be restored to my house by 3pm today.  I really want to be optimistic about this, but yesterday they told me that their estimate was 6pm and there were others before that.  The big difference is that when I went by the house yesterday at 4:30 there were Entergy trucks everywhere.  Further snooping revealed that they were working on the opposite side of the street, BUT this is still progress.  I hear that Markham was back up and running finally around 6pm last night. 

Farewell Rusty Wheelbarrow.  You were a great lawn ornament.

I still have not been able to get any information out of Allstate.  I'm frustrated that I've not been able to make progress in clean up as several of my neighbors have.  The slight hole in my sunroom room is now a giant mess hanging from the back of my house.  I'm hoping that the winds and rain will hold off for a while.  I don't need any more things falling off of my house for a while.

Damage on Day 3

I did receive welcome news from my neighbors yesterday afternoon.  Apparently the Arkansas Baptist State Convention Disaster Relief crew had come to help us with our cleanup.  There were men everywhere volunteering their time to help my neighbors remove trees and other debris from their property.  I was able to meet with the man in charge, and submitted a claim with them for the tree removal from my back yard.  What a blessing to have help arrive without even asking.  I've had so many friends and family members call, email or text their offers to help me clean up my back yard, but having complete strangers show up to help was something I never expected.

This picture still doesn't give the full effect of all the tree limbs, but it's the best I've taken so far.

 Here's hoping that my house will have lights later today.  That refrigerator MUST be cleaned out soon.  Thank goodness I'm the type that only buys food for a day or two at a time. 

The wind began to switch.....

So, last night was my first Italian class. It was a lot of fun, and I'm thankful for my limited Spanish background which seems to make Italian words a bit easier to understand when not in sentences. Ha! Looking forward to seeing how much I can actually learn from this Dutch man that grew up in Italy.

A picture my dad took of the back of my house earlier this morning.

We woke up around 2am with the sound of glass shattering and what sounded like constant thunder and lots of wind. I got mk and Sadie into the hall bath immediately. We had no power, and I couldn't find any good weather updates on my iPhone. Thank goodness for so many friends and Facebook to keep me updated! When we could only hear rain, I ventured out of the bathroom to see where the broken glass was. I was cursing myself for not having a flashlight. I had to use a tealight candle and my phone to inspect things. I couldn't find the glass, but was a bit freaked out when I looked out my back door. It looked like someone was standing there. I opened the door to find a giant piece of a pine tree and fallen onto my run room.

I did finally locate the broken glass. The storm window in Mks room had shattered. So much better than it could have been. Mt neighbors were not all as lucky as me. Helen (Dorothy) was probably hit the worst with the pine tree going through her roof and destroying her porch. Two doors down, another neighbor has part of a pine in his living room. Two doors down from there, a GMC Jimmy was totaled by two pines falling onto it. My next door neighbor on one side has three pines on top of her house, and the other one had her storage building blown to bits. Why couldn't that have been my storage building. That thing NEEDS to be destroyed!

Thankfully, we are fine and the damage is minimal. The main power lines are down in the middle of Markham. They have to replace it, so currently the area next to my street is shutdown. Every house on myblock has lines down in their yards, so I have no idea when power will be restored. Looks like I'll have to have cable and phone repaired as well, but all in all I'm happy that we are all fine.

Please excuse all spelling and grammar issues as I've posted this from my iPhone. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.