So We're Thinking Of Calling The Baby "Windy"

Well, its a happy new year and the shirt has hit the proverbial fan. See, we've been having some hellacious wind and rainstorms up here on Double Wide Ridge, and the 20 year old trailer pretty much threw up its arms in disgust. During a particularly gusty part of New Years day I was peering out the front door at our tarp and cement-filled-bucket carport (classy!) to see if it was going to fly away, when there was an odd crunching noise behind me. A moment later a massive piece of debris comes flying over the house and lands diagonally across the front of the house and yard. I close the door.

What in sam hill was that? I walk the 10 feet to the back of the house and notice that it is much brighter than usual. Peering out the back window reveals a slight problem. It seems that the roof extension over the back porch has always harbored dreams of being a jet wing. In perfect imitation of an airfoil, the 6 foot-wide 40 foot -long section of roof took to the air with the greatest of ease, ripping out some porch railing, a hose spigot and a fair chunk of the roof layers over the actual house. Holy Carp!

Ok. Ok. I'm ok. Wait... WHAT!? Half of my roof just went flying over the house and landed 3 feet from the car?! THIS IS NOT OK! I CAN'T STAY IN HERE! But wait... I CAN'T GO OUT THERE EITHER! PAAAAANNNNIIIICCC!

What to do what to do what to do? Call the neighbors call the neighbors, busy. IM The Hub IM The Hub, momentarily offline. Next logical step? Call my poor sister 3,000 miles away with panic tears rising in my throat. That makes sense. Upon her good, calm advice, I fled out to the car and hightailed it to the neighbors warm safe quiet stable house. Again with the coveting.

So here I sit, 24 hours later, still warm safe and quiet. After my precipitous arrival, the neighbors here (and The Hub who arrived moments later) all ran over to see what needed to be done. Within 15 minutes almost 20 neighbors had shown up with flood tarping, power tools and their own hammers to try and minimize the water damage. I hear it was a very moving display of neighborly barn raising goodness. Of course I hear this hours later, so I missed out on the fuzzy emotional part of the whole thing, and was left with my own personal crying/stress headache instead. Which I can't seem to shake despite all the warm neighborly goodness I have been receiving as well.

So here we are Jan 2nd, and the insurance companies are still closed. Its raining cats and dogs, and the bedroom is starting to leak. We've shut off the water until the broken pipe can be fixed. We shut off the gas, because the flying roof may have damaged the hot water heater. BUT we officially have a claim number, so that should keep us nice and warm and dry, huh? Heh heh. And here's the funny thing... that darn tarp carport? Still standing.