Saturday, November 3, 2012

Back from SANDY!

It is so nice to come back and read all of your nice normal blogs! Normalcy is wonderful! I love just ordinary days!

Our power came back on last night (Friday) about 10pm. Just when I was beginning to think that it would never happen!

Monday night with that storm was truly a horror! We lost four 50+ ft trees, and many, many branches! It was so loud, all the crashing and snapping. We knew something huge had come down because the house shook each time. The sky was lit up with blue flashes. Later, we figured out that they were all the transformers exploding. When there was a momentary lull, we went out on the deck with a flashlight. The big hit was a 200 year-old Silver Maple, which landed on our newly constructed chicken shed. When we came out in the morning, we found out that although damaged, the shed part was intact, but the chicken run was completely destroyed. Some of the chickens had gotten out and were running around. Some of them were trapped in the shed part. Amazingly, all of them survived! I did take us a while before we could count them though!
Hard to tell,but the roof of the chicken coop is in the left of the picture.
One of the trees that came down cut off access to the rest of the yard. It left a hug 15 foot hole in the ground where the roots pulled out. I don't know how, but we will have to fill the hole, though I think the tree itself will be there for some time to come!

We were so lucky that the house was spared. The divider on our deck was ripped off, but other than that, the old house remained intact. I guess someone up there was watching out for us! We spent Tuesday and Wednesday trying to clean up. We ate omelets courtesy of the chickens for dinner, and gave away some eggs to our next door neighbors, and the man who helped us pull the tree off the chicken coop.

Our road was closed because of the many trees stretched across it. Finally when the Tappan Zee bridge re-opened, Keith went back to work on Thursday. It was really awful being stuck alone in a dark house, wondering what was going on in the rest of the world! He was disappointed that the power was not on when he got home Thursday night, and Friday night.
Four days and 5 nights without power was a pain in the neck, but nothing compared to what others have had to contend with though.
I am a pretty easy-going person, but it will be some time before my nerves recover from this one. I still jump when I hear a loud noise!

I am so glad to be able to get back to stitching! I wasn't able to with the power off because I really need my magnifier light to see anything!

9 comments:

Teri said...

Glad to hear that you, the house, and even the chickens survived the storm. I'm sure it will take time to clean up all the damage, and it's a shame to lose the trees, but know that so many of us "out there" are sending prayers and well wishes to you and others who were impacted by Sandy.

Nicola said...

So glad to know that you are okay Erica, I have been thinking of you.

Giovanna said...

So glad to read that you're ok, and that the damage was limited. Take care.

Margaret said...

Lucky you! Still waiting for our power. We'll be lucky if we have it by Friday at this rate.

Nicola said...

I cannot imagine how awful it must of been. Your hens had an amazing escape.

Karoline said...

Glad to hear you're OK and are able to stitch again

Congratulations on finishing Deep Peace, it's stunning

stitcherw said...

Wow, how terrifying, and to have all those trees come down and so close with no damage to the house itself you were so lucky. Glad you finally got your power back.
Sue

Julie said...

Lovely to see a post here and know you are safe. X

Brigitte said...

So good to read that there was no major damage and that your house was spared. With so many trees around it could have been different.