Monday Mischief: Superstorm Sandy’s Direct Hit

Yup, ol’ Sandy got us but GOOD. That Frankenstorm was the real mischief maker this time, and its mischief was epic. 

A 50 year old tree fell square on our house, crushing and buckling the roof, cracking the ceiling in the master bedroom, and causing leaks.

For our blogging buddies from other countries, this was a “superstorm” unprecedented in our state. A hurricane met with two other storms, creating the “perfect storm” depicted in the George Clooney movie. But that wasn’t all – it happened during a full moon, which caused waters to rise higher than they would have at any other time during the month. This was a violent attack by Mother Nature and especially bad because our region doesn’t get hurricanes normally, so our buildings aren’t prepared for them.

Huge roots of the tree that fell on us; just beyond it, you can see the roots of another tree that fell between our home and our next door neighbors. Our entire block looks like a war zone.

View from one of the bedroom windows. Every one of our 4 bedroom windows had large limbs pressing on it. It was a truly scary sight.

And yet we were extremely blessed. So many thousands of people in our state have no homes left at all – they were either swept away by raging flood waters, demolished by trees, or blown to smitherines. People were killed or lost. The fire marshall made door-to-door visits to homes like ours with severe damage, deciding whether to condemn our homes and force us to evacuate – again, we were blessed. He said our foundation was stable so we could stay.

We had no power or heat for 5 days, but once again, we were fortunate – many homes still have no power, with no anticipated return to normalcy. We hunkered down and bundled up in lots of layers and slept under tons of blankets – my personal count was 5 layers of clothes, 3 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of gloves, and a fleece ski headband for my ears. (And a partridge in a pear tree. LOL) 😉 Daytime temps were in the 40s and nights have been in the 30s, so I slept under 9 heavy blankets as well as a sleeping bag made to withstand 20 degree temps. It was dark, dreary, cloudy and cold for five solid days. 

We have an electric stove/oven, so we couldn’t cook. We had prepared as best as possible, but we were pretty much down to fruits, nuts, popcorn, precooked potatoes and the like by day 4. When the power came on Friday night, we celebrated like it was New Years Eve.

The storm really scared Daisy. The 100 mile-per-hour winds scared us all, but Daisy trembled pretty hard no matter how much we tried to console her. Her instincts took over and she sought shelter – high ground and cover. We were all sitting on sofas in the family room, and she nervously climbed on the pillows behind our backs (for high ground, I guess) and squeezed under our arms. You just can’t argue with a dog’s instincts – somehow she knew that she needed to get cover and stay out of possible flood waters, or at least that’s how it seemed. She’s never reacted like that before.

Our priority after the storm was to keep ourselves and Daisy warm and safe until the power came back on. We lit a fire in the fireplace every night, played games all day into the evenings to keep ourselves occupied, and did a jigsaw puzzle too. DD said that except for being cold and lacking food, she really liked “living a 17th century life”! She enjoyed not being tethered to electronics of any kind and being together every day. I agree with that perspective. So we’ve decided to have Friday night fires in the fireplace along with games all through fall and winter. 😀

We kept Daisy bundled in multiple layers of blankets as well as her little pink sweater – she seemed quite content on our laps, despite an apprehensive gleam in her eyes!

We’re on odd/even gas rationing plus we have a water shortage because so many reservoirs were drained to prevent them from overflowing. Some businesses are just starting to open, and food is beginning to be delivered to some supermarkets.

Tree crews, police, and all kinds of professionals have been flocking into our state to help with the cleanup – God bless them all! A tree company from Michigan was able to bring their cherry picker and crane in, and they removed the tree from our house. It was quite a lengthy and cautious operation!

It took a crew of 7 strong guys, a crane, a cherry picker, and 2 more trucks to get that huge tree safely off our house.

Our prayers are with everyone who suffered far greater losses from this storm. We’re helping in the relief efforts and always wish we could do more. It’ll be quite some time before our roof and ceiling are repaired, but for now we have a few huge tarps over the entire front of the house, bolted in place with 2x4s (this was the recommendation of the roofer). AND we’re expecting a noreaster in a few days – wish us luck!

We’re part of the Monday Mischief Blog Hop.

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