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| Paul Bunyan, where are you |
Storm Damages vintage home
The tiny community of Dacus, Tx, near historic Montgomery, was rocked this week by recent weather events. The area awakened to the news that a local landmark, the homestead of the Intrepid Traveler, was damaged by a huge tree falling on the house. The property, locally known as “the flaw west of Dacus” is the family home of the famous travel writer and philosopher.
Yes, gentle readers, this is what the front page article should have read like in the Montgomery Mouthpiece, the local newspaper, had anyone bothered to ask what the big thud was last Thursday night. But sadly that was not the case. No roving reporter bothered to ask about it. So I decided to write an account of the event and submit it to the local paper myself. Otherwise, no one would know the deprivation that the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler and I are dealing with.
Below are segments of my first draft of the account, with some comments that came back from the Montgomery Mouthpiece editor, shown in red. I have not yet had the chance to make changes or clarifications to this article for the paper. But I hope to soon. The world needs to know.
My submittal:
It was on a dark and stormy night (Editor: dark because it was 9pm. Not stormy. No wind or anything reported that night. Get your facts right. Use Weather.com for crying out loud). The fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler and I were home and enjoying a PBS program on television (Editor: I like the way you try to make yourself sound intellectual by mentioning PBS, but you were probably watching a Tractor Pull competition). The wife decided to go downstairs to take a bath while I remained upstairs. A few minutes later, I heard a horrific cracking sound followed by wood splintering. Then following that, the hideous noise of tree limbs raking against the roof, then an awesome thud. I knew in an instant what had happened. One of the trees near the house had fallen over, hit the house and slammed against the concrete driveway.
Our house instantly went coal black. I could not see my hand in front of my face. That is because my hand was not in front of my face, it was clutching the TV remote in a death grip. I did not need to turn off the TV since the tree did it for me. The power was gone and we were on our own…. (Editor: I guess you think wolves will suddenly attack you now that the lights are off?)
My concern instantly pivoted to my wife, taking a bath downstairs. I imagined her trapped in the steamy hot water, pinned down under the weight of thousands of pounds of tree and house debris, possibly drowning. Since I could not finish the PBS program, I sprang into action. I called down to ask if she was OK. In the deathly silence I heard her say “I’m OK.” I was relieved to know that the tree did not damage the interior of the house. I prayed the water had not drained from the tub because I needed a bath next.
When the tree came down, it damaged the corner of our roof. It landed in the space between the power pole and the house, but in so doing ripped out all the electrical wires and nearly tore the meter from the wall. I knew there was the danger of live wires, but I bravely grabbed a flashlight and headed out to assess the damage. I expected the wires to be sparking and dancing around, like in a movie, but that was not the case. There was just a lot of tree debris and bits of house everywhere. When the pine tree fell, it took part of a beautiful oak tree with it. Oak tree limbs as large as a man’s thigh were in a tangled heap before me.
We called the power company, who sent a crew out within an hour to assess the damage. They killed the power to the wires and make it safe to walk around. They said the electrical connection to our house was the home owner’s responsibility, so we would need to hire an electrician to fix the mess. I always thought the power company’s responsibility went all the way to the meter, but apparently not. So, we were not going to get the power back that night. There was nothing more to do to secure the area, so we calmly we back inside. The a/c would not work, of course, without electricity, so we sweated the night away, and bravely waited for daylight. (editor: please continue this intriguing story… Yawn.)To be continued…..
Dateline Montgomery, part two
When tragedy strikes, it can bring out the best in human nature. It can show you what kind of person you are; what mettle you are made of. It also shows what your priorities are. In my case, since we did not have electricity, and the freezer was not working, I decided to eat the ice cream. I still stand by that decision even though it may not have seemed like a good use of my time.
One of the unforeseen problems of living in the country, and using well water, is that if you lose power, you also lose your running water. I think running water is probably more important as a modern convenience than electricity. I could use the camp stove to make coffee. And we could live off of sandwiches and not need to cook, but not having running water is a true problem. We were dipping water from the lake to flush the toilet, but that does not help with washing dishes, washing clothes, or ourselves. After spending a full day, with the neighbor’s help, chain sawing up the tree and dragging it off, I needed a shower badly. I had to wash off in the lake. So I stripped down and dove in. It felt wonderful to float in the cool, spring fed water. This was just like when I was a kid and would go swimming here. All my cares and my smell were washed away. I climbed out on the dock and let the sun dry me. Life was good. We had a major fish die-off the next day.
It became evident that we were not going to get power restored any time soon. It was now Saturday and we had spent two nights without electricity. I bit the bullet. I went to the home center and bought a generator. I already owned one, but could not get it started, of course. With the new generator we could run one window air conditioner with it, or run the frig and recharge the cell phones and laptops. So we kept the frig cool during the day and had the A/C on for Saturday night. Ever since we moved here to this country house, I have been complaining about those noisy window air conditioners. But if we’d had a whole house a/c system we would not have had the power to run it. Score one for crappy window units. It was nice to be cool.
It is amazing how slowly time passes when you are waiting for someone. I have new appreciation for what the dogs endure when we put them in their kennel if we are away for a day. We were waiting for the insurance adjuster to call, and for the electrical contractor to call with their work schedule. We did not hear from either one until the end of Saturday. So, that meant that the earliest the electrical could be repaired was Monday, two days from now. Yuk. I was running out of clothes to sweat in.
I cleaned up all the remaining branches and pine cones from the area so the electricians would have a clear path to work. And, since it was the weekend, I also finished rebuilding a large wooden raised flower bed near the lake. And I finished installing low wattage lighting on the perimeter of our new deck. So I stayed busy, as usual, even though I anxiously awaited the return to normalcy.
We had to wait four days for the power to be restored. But that really was nothing in the big scheme of things. We have been without power for a week or more after a hurricane. So this was not tragic by any means. We still do not have the roof fixed or even have a contractor’s bid to know what the damage might cost to fix. But we aren’t getting any rain in the house, that I know of, so those repairs are not urgent.
I am very happy that we did not sustain any serious damage, no one was hurt, and life can move on. I secretly hope that PBS reruns that tractor pull. I had a fifty on the John Deere.
