songbird wrote:

....
the followup continues to be interesting from the
tornado as we've learned more and heard more stories.

the two houses that lost their garages were shifted
on their foundations and had to be moved back, but it
looks like now they are fairly recovered. one already
has the new garage put up, the other seems to be just
starting work again.

the house out back, which from here looked like it
only lost part of the roof, from the other side had
extensive damage to the windows and interior. the
family there had been just sitting down to dinner and
had a 30 second warning. they'd just made it down to
the basement and the Dad had just grabbed the dog and
was trying to pull the basement door shut when the
tornado went by and tried to pull the door open again.
a very close call for them. they are temporarily
living with friends until the windows and interior
walls are replaced. they had a large amount of
damage to the wallboards/plastering. at least the
roof is now repaired.

the house across the road with the most damage had
2x4inch boards go through the kitchen in two places
and they also had pieces of wood go through their
garage (hence the blown out garage door). they are
getting new siding. by the looks of things they are
reusing the bricks for something so i didn't ask if
we could reuse the bricks.

the house that had the tree put upon the top is just
now starting to be reroofed, they've already fixed
the smashed part and the chimney's have been replaced.
we were able to scavenge bricks from them (with thanks
from the owner as he would have had to pay extra for
the overweight tonnage in the roll-on-container).

we had a visit with one of our relatives last week
and while we were driving in it looked like a warzone
there. after a bit we both said that it looked like
a tornado had gone through there, just like our neighbor-
hood with all the roll-on-containers, tarped roofs and
various trees down or already having been cut up. sure
enough one had, but it appeared to be slightly larger
as there was much more damage. at the end of his street
and around his place, but he had no damage to his house.
there wasn't any news of such a storm a few weeks ago
in our local news so we never even knew to check on him
sooner. as this happened near the city where i was born
which always had a lot of tornado activity anyways it
made me think again of one of those early memories of
staying in the basement while the storms were going by.


songbird