OK, Uncle. I said it. Anyone listening who can do something about it? This morning was the third time huddled in the basement for storms this week (and would have been four for me as I wished I was in the basement when stopped along the road during another fierce storm on Tuesday).
Some years we never have to take shelter in the basement, but three times this week alone! I beginning to wonder about the logic that if we attacked Iraq because they might have had weapons of mass destruction, might we also pretend that global climate change might be real and do something about it? The last year has been killer here – first the huge ice storm a year ago March, then the winter that never ended and brought storm upon storm, and now this spring that looks like in many places will top the summer of 93 floods and has brought record amounts of tornadoes.
Today’s damage photos consist of a partial collapse in the wind at Leon’s feed mill in Melbourne – 3 miles away. The debris broke a gas line and forced evacuation of the surrounding neighborhood for a while.
Also, about two miles away, this is all that is left of a construction trailer. It used to rest on the blocks in the foreground. Earlier in the week it blew over in a storm and they put it back up – but this morning it was ripped to pieces.
But I’m saving the worst for last – our basement. It started leaking about 9:30 this morning and I stayed home from church to deal with it. It was uneventful as flooded basements go until another round of storms knocked out power for about a half-hour. This is only the 2nd time in 11 years we’ve had any water in the basement. About 12 hours later, we’ll still pumping and it could be a long night – another downpour moved through in the afternoon – we’ve got two floor drains and they are both accumulating water, so we’ve got two pumps going. We seldom have water as the house is on the crest of a hill.
As if that isn’t enough – something is out of whack on the turbine. Our installer was out in a matter of hours after getting the call that it was acting funky. It was too windy to drop the turbine when he was out here to look at it (45 mph gusts), so he’ll bring another one with him this week and either fix the one that is not working correctly or put up a new one. Not sure what’s wrong – perhaps it’s out of balance as it strongly vibrates -perhaps some debris hit the blades in one of the storms – we’ll know more later this week.