Glug, Glug, We're drowning

This week’s “severe” weather has finally moved on and the sun is peeping out. We’re once again scraping up in the detritis of more storm damage.

It’s another bleak day in the Tulsa for insurance adjustors. We were awakened again at 2:30 a.m.., Monday night, by tornado sirens and the reverb of gunshots on the roof. Persons of a military ilk, would have a better description of the size and caliber, but this sound was not like the familiar sound of branches breaking during the ice-storm, (one big cannon blast with a long shimmy and then followed the echoing, reverberating thump). This time it was more like machine gun fire blasting the roof, the windows, the skylights.

Dia snuck out during a lull in the ruckus and salvaged a hailstone. It would have been the perfect size to shoot 18 holes. Our roof could be a 9 hole course. And, yup a sky light is blasted out. The one in the boys bathroom has a big hole and the roof guy says that rooves (plural like hooves) one quarter mile on both directions from my house are totaled. Yay, hurray, one more thing to add to the repair list.

The trees ravaged by December’s ice storm had just about recovered, so it was only fair that they should again be annihilated. There are no blossoms left, and the ground is piled with pollen and whatever branches remained.

However in better news, the hackberry sustained no collateral damage. We’ve spent $1500 on it in a slow and methodical amputation process and now with one trunk and one auxiliary branch, cabled together with state-of-the-art prosthetics, it should be good from here on out.

I spent yesterday pumping eight inches of flood water off the pool cover as it had collapsed in onto itself. The cover filled up and sunk in because all of the water bladders that held the top taut were punctured by hail. Not pinholes but circular rips the size of golf balls.

The black car has $6,700 worth of hail damage. We’ve had it two months and the damage has again exceeded its 60% market/replacement value and may again be totaled. Dia is two for two now, “I can’t believe this storm totaled another car!” *@(*&)(*%$* or nasty words to that effect. (as profane as Dia gets).

The last car was totaled one day after the other ice storm. With Dia’s vehicular luck, she really should consider moving. (Oh she already is?). These have yet to be her fault and she struggles with the no-fault, but total misery anyway learning curve. Her windshield is smashed also, and Dia has renamed the lovely pittance, (referring to it’s current value and it’s pittedness) the black pox. We had put on the car cover, but mere fabric is no deterrent for that size hail. Only one side got pelted, to the east and the truck was against an east fence so it got hit less.

The truck has some damage, but not enough to matter, after all it is a 4x4 Ford and in Oklahoma that much damage can result from one good off-road mudding.

I’m getting ready for the next deluge. The roofers and insurance guys will be pummeling me again. I wonder how much more of a pelting I can stand. Wednesday and Thursdays storms overflowed every saturation point and the school one mile away was closed. Buses can’t drive through two feet of water. There are cars swept away, major intersections closed and the bridge down my street sank (or sunk).

Water, water everywhere. The attic is most and soggy and Dia can now shower outside her shower under the air vent. In my experience, the deluge doesn’t stop just because every crevasse is full and overflowing. I don’t need emails saying, So move.” I’ll let you know how things go when the pits dry out.