The storm

Wednesday I was giving Oliver a bath and waiting for my wife to get home when the lights started flickering. Great, I thought, it'll be a brownout. Then I heard a crack and a thud. A few minutes later there was another crack and a loud popping sound and then we lost power. I got Oliver out of the tub and we went to investigate. We looked out at the back yard and I noticed that the sycamore tree in our neighbor's yard had dropped a limb damaging their garage and snapping the power line. I had a sinking feeling that this wasn't going to be a quick brownout. I looked at the sky to see if it was greening and I should take Oliver to shelter in the basement, but it never really got to that point. I got him dressed and we went downstairs.

Once we got downstairs, I got to see the biggest part of the damage. The tree in our front yard had split down the middle in the wind. The tree had fallen towards the house, but landed just in front of the front door. It didn't even break the screen. It turns out that it only twisted our front gutter. And all those guys who looked at trimming the tree thought it would hit the house. It was barely a grazing, guys! Inspection completed, I settled Oliver down to sleep. Until Mommy got home and the inspection had to start all over again.

Last night, I picked Oliver up from day care and stopped by the house. We were still without power and the house was starting to heat up. I started trying to saw my way though the tree that was blocking the front door but Oliver was not being cooperative. Rather than gut it out we called some friends and crashed at their place last night. After work today, we'll drop by the house again and see if the power is back on. If not, our nomadic days aren't quite at an end.