The week after the tornado

We are a week and two days out from March 15.

And it’s hard to remember what life was like before that day.

Our life now involves having to give our address (and possibly show ID) to the sheriffs at the entrances to our subdivision. It involves looking down anytime you are in the yard so you can keep checking for the ever-elusive glass we keep finding. It involves giving hugs and support to your neighbors and friends who were more affected by the tornado. It involves seeing more dads at dance class on Monday, as everyone is sticking closer to home in the wake of this disaster. It involves keeping a vigilant eye and ear to changes in your child’s behavior, checking for signs that she might have unvoiced questions or concerns. It involves hearing your almost 3-yr old say “there’s the TORNADO” when the TV shows a weather radar screen (and a week ago he couldn’t even say tornado).

But last Sunday morning, after a very brief rainshower (that made a bunch of people nervous with the rumbling of thunder and flashes of lightning), this showed up over our neighborhood. I’m not a big Twitter-er, but I would bet that "#dexterrainbow” was probably “trending” that morning ;-) Seems everyone saw it and was taking pictures of it and taking it as a sign that better days were coming.

My kids were excited to get back out on their bikes Sunday morning, since all of the debris was cleaned up. There were bulldozers and crews working late into the night Saturday night, cleaning up the piles of junk in front of everyone’s house.

The Dexter athletic teams were out cutting down trees in the neighborhood. They had a crew of about 15-20 high school kids, and a few dads with chainsaws. While the dads cut up the our downed tree, the kids hauled the branches to the street (they’d later get picked up to be chipped). They cut the trunk of the tree up for us to use as firewood in our firepit (and they even stacked it by our deck!), and then my dad came out with his woodsplitter and he & Rick spent 30 minutes splitting wood. Now when you sit on my back deck, it smells like Christmas from the cut up pine tree :-)

On Tuesday, the Best Neighbor in the World called me at 2.30p and told me she was putting food in our fridge, and then asked if we were good enough friends that she could borrow a t-shirt. She only had her work clothes (sweater and dress pants and shoes) and it was almost 80 degrees out. I told her she was welcome to borrow a shirt, as long as we were good enough friends that she wouldn’t judge me on the condition of my closet (it seems inappropriate to make tornado jokes now). When she said she dress pants on, I told her to grab a pair of mesh shorts too, but she said she couldn’t do that, because she only had dress shoes…unless I had a spare pair of flip-flops. Apparently Amy & I aren’t *that* good of friends, because if we were, she’d know that if there was one thing I have a million of, it’s pairs of flip-flops.

So she decked herself out in my clothes, and went back to her house to work with Bob, and when she walked in their house, he looked at her and told her she looked like me. Hahahaha. And when we got Mallory off the bus, I asked Mallory who Miss Amy looked like. Mallory looked at her and smiled and said “my MOM!”. Hahahahaha some more.

But when I got home from work, I went for a quick run/walk, and then got into my bowl t-shirt/mesh shorts/flip flops attire so we could really be twinsies (forgive my bright red face, I was still flushed from my run). It was sort of embarrassing when we made a last minute run up to the local school to get free stuff from all the donations because I’m sure we looked ridiculous.

Tuesday night the living-out-of-a-hotel-best-neighbors-in-the-world fed us dinner. This isn’t as obnoxious as it sounds; they had been given heat and serve meals and because they needed to be near their house to talk to adjustors and contractors and such, it made sense to eat it at our house. Plus, our yard and house provide a safe place for the kids to play, and they don’t have to feel displaced since they are just eating and playing at our house, which happens all the time.

Then on Thursday, I came home from work to see Amy & Bob on our deck, and the neighbors next to them about to sit down too. I figured that while I may not be good at providing freezer meals, I am really good at offering a deck chair and cold drinks. So I was happy that I was able help in the best way I know how.

This morning (Saturday, March 24), Mallory asked why the neighbors were having those bags go up to their roof. I told her they were bags of shingles, and asked if she knew what shingles were. She said yes, that they were those black things that had those things on them. Ah, your grandpa must be an engineer!

The weather has been crazy the past two weeks (and unfortunately contributed to the tornado). We have had temperatures in the 70s and 80s for almost two weeks straight. And once the rains ended after the tornado & storm blew through, we’ve only had two very small showers of rain…other than that it’s been glorious blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures. Today has been yucky and grey and rainy, but it’s allowed me to get caught up on stuff inside my house (since I haven’t felt obligated to be outside checking for glass).

We have had the contractors and insurance adjustors out to inspect our house. We’ve been told that our entire roof needs new shingles, and we need all new siding and gutters. We don’t have that much severe damage, but since replacing pieces and parts of the roof and siding will decrease the integrity of the outer shell of our house, all of it needs to be replaced. There is debris wedged into the siding on all sides of our house and it is still too hard to tell what is debris stuck to the siding, and what are cracks and holes. As our contractor said, he isn’t going to guarantee or warranty that a half-new roof to be as good as what we had before the storm. The screens on the master bedroom windows are shredded, and two of our exterior light fixtures are damaged and need replacing. Our garage door has dents and scratches all over it from flying debris and will have to be replaced. There are other parts of the exterior of our home that will need to be repaired (like the fake-wood corner support thing next to our bedroom window that has a big chunk taken out of it).

Rick’s car will be in the shop for 10 days getting $6500 worth of tornado damage fixed. In the meantime he gets to drive my dad’s Audi. I wish my car had tornado damage so I could drive my dad’s Audi!