Tonight we had the second big storm in the
past 24 hours. Overnight we had one come
through that made us powerless at 3:30 a.m. and powerful again at 11:15
a.m. I slept soundly through it
all. This evening another storm came
through, the power teased us with blips of off, but it remained on. Jeff had just come in from an 8 mile run and
was going to go do a cool down walk when the storm hit. It was like a tropical storm where the rain
was horizontal and so fast that no drops could be seen. The wind was so hard it dropped a branch from
our tree as I watched out the front door.
Shortly after there was a massive crack and about 5 minutes later, as I
watched from the door, half of our maple tree crashed to the ground. This tree had five trunks when we moved in
here 14 years ago next week. It was down
to four. Now there are two. The leaves
on this tree would turn crimson in the fall, and, according to one of the
neighbors, when it was crimson, they knew it was time to go fishing.
I looked at Ray and nearly cried when the tree was on the
ground. Erin was hoping to have senior
pictures taken within the trunks of that tree.
She won’t even know about it until she returns on the 30th. It fell into the street, but did not hit any
signs or lines. But it was blocking the
road, trapping all of us in the cul de sac.
The rain fell for a while longer, giving us time to finish eating
dinner. Then, it stopped. We wandered out into the yard and saw that
the neighbor across the street had a huge branch drop into his driveway, but he
was not home, so his truck was not hit.
At the end of the cul de sac, another neighbor had a tree drop into his
driveway and hit his truck. Another had
a branch break a window in one of the cars.
People started venturing out of their homes to survey the damage. A young man who is dog sitting at one of the
neighbors offered to help. A friend of
Ray’s came over to help. A new neighbor
we hadn't yet met walked over and then went to get his chain saw. All in all, the neighborhood was a buzz. The trees were removed as much as was
possible in the dark. A neighborhood
pulled together, with new neighbors some of the first to come to help. Tomorrow, the work will have to
continue. Hopefully, the storm that is
still expected to hit later tonight will spare our little neighborhood.
Dear God of Hospitality, Thank you for showing us the value
of neighbors. We had to come together to
accomplish so much in so little time.
The commitment for tomorrow morning and overwhelming willingness to work
with one another is a great representation of community. When a neighborhood comes together.We’ve lived here for so long and have never
had this kind of damage that brought us all out of our homes with open arms,
willing to help. In the midst of
destruction, we learned that we truly can be a community. Thank you for this gift. Amen.