IRENE!

Well, my last post talked about the pace of life picking up a bit for our family; what I did not expect was to experience an earthquake and hurricane as well this week. To be quite honest, I can't really say that I experienced the earthquake because I personally never felt it. Many others in the office felt it and it woke Aaron up from his nap, in fact the kids even said they felt it. I guess I just don't shake too easily. :)

I can say that we all experienced Irene. In fact we tried to prepare for her arrival and everything. You will see in some of the following pictures that preparedness does not always produce the hoped for results. But we are all safe and that is what matters the most.

 These were the clouds that came with the first outer bands of Irene. This was at about 4:oo pm on Saturday. At this point the rain was intermittent and the winds were not too bad.

 These clouds were as the rain began to intensify. This was approx. 6:30 pm. By this time the winds were picking up in intensity along with the rain.

As we watched the track of the storm it went from an almost direct inland hit of our area to being slightly more off towards New Jersey. We knew that we would experience the effects of the storm no matter what track it took, so we began to prepare as much as we could. We laid down all our outdoor furniture  protecting the cushions and pillows. We always have our trampoline anchored and due to the surround we couldn't lay it down, so we added some weight (approx. 200 pounds of cinder blocks). While in the picture the basketball hoop is upright against the garage we eventually opted to lay it down to avoid it being knocked over. (Looking back we probably should have left it, but then again, who knows if that would have changed anything.) These pictures were taken around 9:00 pm and by this time the wind and rain were a bit more extreme. I did not get much sleep Saturday night as the storm passed through. We never lost power, in fact we actually never lost our satellite connection either. We have friends though who even now are still without power. As I drove through town you can see trees down and lots of smaller sticks and leaves lying around. There were areas that had to deal with flooding. Speaking of which we did have a minor amount of water in our basement, but nothing to cause a huge fuss over.

I took this picture from almost the same spot as the above picture of the trampoline and basketball hoop. As you can see the trampoline is not even in the picture.

We think that the trampoline caught the basketball hoop a bit as it flew over, causing a severe bend in the backboard. We later discovered the only reason the trampoline stayed where it was in this picture was due to the fact that it was embedded between part of the frame of the barn and the roof. 

We had some damage to this tree which is at the opposite side of the house as the trampoline and basketball hoop were.. We lost a few limbs, but fortunately it isn't a huge tree.

(All of the above pictures of the damage where taken during the backside of the storm, so the winds were still very high and it was still raining at this point. They were taken at about 7:30 am Sunday.)

As the storm moved out the sky cleared and we could begin to see all the leaves and sticks that littered the ground, much like a salad shooter had gone through. We ventured outside to fully evaluate the damage and do a lot of cleanup around 3:30 pm Sunday afternoon.

What you can't see in this picture is that the barn the trampoline was pinned to, it is to the left. The cinder block that is at the base of the fence was actually on the other side of the fence in the neighbor's yard. This block probably weighed about 40-50 pounds and flew from the original trampoline site, over the barn probably about 150-200 yards. (I am really bad when it comes to measurements so this might be a little off, but it was a much longer length of space than we ever expected to find it. And yes we had to search for it.)

We were very thankful that the winds were blowing in such a way that the cinder blocks did not travel toward the house.

Well, after we pried the trampoline off the barn we began to disassemble it to see what might be salvageable. As you can see, it is most likely a complete loss. The backboard was definitely questionable when we got it upright. But it is now fixed, as it seems that one of the back joints is all that was bent. 

I am not entirely sure why this is so blurry, but this was the night sky on Sunday. Amazing how quickly the weather can change. It is so very amazing to me the strength and intensity of nature. God's power is definitely evident in moments such as these. But after the storm there is such beauty to be seen as well.