The Winds of Change

Saturday I went to visit my daughter Anita and her husband Dave. I hadn't been there for some time and was anxious to see all the changes to their house.

Sometimes the weather here can be exciting. Last August those who live in Minnesota might remember a storm that came through the Twin Cities. It did a lot of wind damage to some areas of the city. Anita and Dave live in one of the hardest hit areas. In Minnesota when there is bad weather we all go down in the basement. I remember getting the call from Anita in the middle of the night. We were in the basement and had to run upstairs despite the storm to answer the phone (memo to self, take the phone into the basement during a storm). I was surprised when she said they had a lot of damage, since the storm didn't seem as bad where we are.

I can only imagine what it must have been like to wake up as 3:30 in the morning with the wind howling and then hear some noises that just don't sound right. They went down into the basement quickly, but had no power. A good Minnesotan always keeps a flashlight handy for just such times. In the morning when they could see what happened they found both of their large trees down in their yard. They found out later that the winds were straight line 80 miles an hour.

Amazingly their car in the driveway was almost undamaged. One tree fell in front of it and the other in the back. The only damage to the car was a scratch on the front bumper from the electric mast that came down with the tree in back. Which explains why they didn't have power! It took three days for the power to be restored and they had to hire an electrician to put the mast back on the house.

Their garage wasn't so lucky! It was later declared a total loss by the insurance company.



So after many months of negotiating with the insurance company and the city, they are almost done with repairs of their house. With a little bit of their own money they are getting an attached double car garage and new siding. It was fun to see how nice it looks. A couple more weeks and it should be all done. It was very stressful though for Anita and Dave to get to this point but sometimes the winds of change can be for good.