Damage Report

Holy cats! We just got super clobbered outside! This is what I get for sitting here in my underwear ogling Isabella Rosselllini bug-porn and not paying a lick of attention to the outside world (hey, it's my vacation and I'll ogle all the Isabella Rossellini bug-porn I want).

What started out as a lively thunderstorm turned into insane amounts of banging against my bedroom windows, as the light in my house switched to Armageddon black to match the shade of outdoors. I flipped up my venetian blinds and was met with blackness, speckled with white. The white was mothball-sized hail, coming down at a volume I had previously never experienced.

During moments of clarity, when the winds died down low for seconds at a time, I could make out my street, and my driveway, and my Taurus rocking back and forth as hail raced down the windshield in like someone spilling white marbles. Unseen in this photo is the neighbor's garbage cans rolling out into the street, flailing trash, and a mysterious bit of aluminum siding that I was praying wasn't mine (more on that).

As the storm receded to a mere thunderstorm and the winds dissipated, I slipped on my raincoat and combat boots and trudged out into the flooded backyard to survey the damage. For such a brief flash of a storm, I seem to have suffered more damage than I had during the last two hurricanes combined. Although my neighbor Brenda's lawn furniture looked to be trying to make a break for it. That's her patio umbrella straddling our shared fence. Hey, at least her trampoline didn't make it over.

A large branch from my pear tree snapped off about halfway up the trunk and took down a few slats from my fence that borders my neighbor to the left.

And the place where my branch once was. Sorry, Tyler. I know how much you love to be "treed" like the bear you are. :(

Venturing out front, I see that my neighbors have taken the fallen siding and moved it to just outside the front of my doorway. Hey! How do they know it's my siding, anyway? The front of my townhouse looks fine! No lost shutters. No missing slats...

Oh. Oops. Okay, that totally looks like my attic up there, and those siding pieces totally look like they'd fit up in that top corner for certain. And it totally looks like my attic is exposed to the elements, which by the way, is directly above my bedroom. Well, shazbot. Time to dig out the ole homeowners insurance after all.

I am worried that Joe isn't home from work yet. I wonder what the damages are from where he is to where I am. I have heard nothing but sirens for the last hour, and I saw a fire truck speed right down my dead end road. I called my parents, and even they didn't get this kind of damage out in Great Bridge. But I must say that I consider myself extremely lucktastic. So much could have been destroyed, considering how sudden this was, and how none of my hatches have been battened down. Again, it sounds as if Suffolk got the worst of it, and is seeing possible tornadoes out their way.

Locals... how are you fairing? Anything to claim? (Anita, what's the report out in Franklin?)