Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Come Hail or High Water…









The thunder turned into rain, and then came the hail. I was about to leave the restaurant building Friday evening when Shelli called and said, “Greg is watching the radar and you better get home.” So, I stopped off at the deer processor guy on the way home to look at his walk in cooler he has for sale. The wind really picked up and the sky was looking greenish. The phone rang again and Shelli said, “Where are you now? Get home.” I stopped off at the Harmon’s before going home and the hail started. It wasn’t too bad. I helped Greg secure some blankets and comforters on their new truck and I headed home. As soon as I pulled under the carport, all ‘hail’ broke loose. I stayed under the carport.

I was very impressed with the golf ball size hail we were getting. Reminded me of Spring back home. Then came the tangerine to baseball size hail. That lasted for 15 minutes, and then back to golf ball/ marble size. Shelli would come out from the house and yell something at me and then go back in. I couldn’t hear a word she was saying because large hail on a tin roof is deafening. Then she came out and yelled some more and threw a golf ball in the yard. Err? I retreated back in the carport and took some pictures of the storm. All in all, I was stuck under the carport for nearly an hour.

When the hail slowed, I put a Tupperware container on my head and ran to the house. I asked Shelli what she was trying to tell me on the carport and she said she thought it would be fun if we played a little ‘find the golf ball in the hail storm’ game. That’s what I love about her! Finding a game.

After the storm receded, I headed back over to the Harmons and Greg and I went on damage assessment. It was fun to see a lot of the creeks that are normally dry flowing like a river. We headed to some places that we have always thought, “I wonder what this looks like after a big storm?” It was impressive. On the way back we met Shelli and she advised us we had no water and Trey needed help. We met Trey and Phil at the water pump, fixed a pipe and then I helped Trey put plastic on his windows.

Everyone suffered some sort of hail damage. Broken windows (Trey had 5), roof damage, dimpled cars and psychologically impaired pets. The claims adjuster will be out this week, but I don’t think he can help Trey’s dog. She’s okay physically, but she looks up a lot now.
I’ll have some restaurant related material on here later this week.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wowzers! You didn't say whether or not YOU came out unscathed? The creeks / falls are beautiful.

Jenn said...

Entertaining story!
Had similar experience in STL. A/P police had to leave notes on cars parked in long term parking. Hail was so big that people reported vandalism.

Anonymous said...

Nicely done, John-John, but what the hail did you think you were doing driving the jeep that far into the high water? A foot of water can float a car, dude.
Himey Lou

Janie Ann said...

Shelli is such a player! Think you should call Tupperware and tell them you have something else that you can use their product for..."hail helmet"