Tornado

There hadn't been much happening in our lives since returning from Arizona the end of February.  We've made a couple of week long trips, but nothing that I haven't blogged about before.  Why post about the same ol' things?

Our front yard a couple of years ago, and this past Fall.

Life as we knew it changed on May 9th, around 11:30 AM.  Our phones alerted us of a tornado warning for our area.  We've been exposed to hundreds of warnings in our lifetime, but never felt we were in danger enough to seek shelter.  This one was different for some reason, though I can't put my finger on why.  Maybe it was the small warning box with our home dead center, or just God taking care of us.  We grabbed a blanket, picked up Sally, and headed to our smallest bathroom. Within minutes we could hear the wind; then the sounds of debris hitting the walls and roof.  We kept waiting for the horrendous crash of our home coming apart around us.  After a couple of minutes all that could be heard was pouring rain. I walked to our front door, opened it, and this is what I saw.

My shop, and truck.

Our driveway.

Random shots around our yard.

A miracle, or the Hand of God, saved our house.  We had "large" pine trees down on three sides of our house.  We had a tree overhanging our house, but it didn't fall.  We chained it up over night, till a tree guy came and cut it down.

We had no choice but to practically clear cut our front yard.

The last one falling.

Our front yard, today.

This small pile of logs represents what our front yard once was. Everything that wouldn't make a log was hauled to a burn pit.  There's no market for pulp size wood, anymore. We have a very big job clearing all the stumps, roots, and associated trash.  We'll have our own burn pile for weeks to come.

As I mentioned before, we were blessed that our home received NO damage.  Our fence around two and a half acres was destroyed.  My shop, as well as another out building received damage also.  Insurance?  Yes, we thought so.  We've had a homeowners policy with the same company for almost fifty years.  We thought we were adequately covered. But a little known clause called "policy limits for peripheral coverage" raised it's little head. 

We're going to be fine, though we're covering most of the cost of repairs.  But, a word to the wise.  If you have a house, and maybe a fence covered by your homeowners policy, you're probably ok.

  If you have a home with a shop, extended garage, fence, pool house, etc.; you might want to check with your agent to find out what your "policy limit" would be for repairs on all those if you have a catastrophic loss....jc