Popular Post 12string Posted September 7, 2021 Popular Post Share #1 Posted September 7, 2021 There's pictures and video, mostly of the same 9 houses because that's the easiest shot. I heard the stories. But, just wow. There's finally enough roads open to get in and help clean up the tornado. Still places that are unreachable. I've seen hurricanes, derecchios, floods. This is so different. Maybe the thing that stands out most is how noticeable the sun is. These were super shaded neighborhoods, hundreds year old trees. No shade at all. Swaths were there's not a single tree standing. Some, no houses either. The big, pretty, shady center of town park just isn't. Working at a house Saturday, chatting with a utility crew from Ontario. Yup, there's that much needing to be done. A county emergency guy stopped to see if we needed help. We got talking. He lost his farm. Literally, they can not even find the pieces of his barn. He had to shoot his favorite horse. But he's out helping. Resource centers have popped up. Including for the volunteers. Next to the Taco Truck was a guy set up with all of his tool sharpening machines. People driving around bringing food and drinks on location. After Mass Sunday, we popped into the hall to check in. We had to stop taking donations, too much stuff. I dropped a FB post to say bring nothing but yourself, within minutes, people showed up. Not church members, just anybody. Another FB post about a poorer part of town not getting help and not having resources, maybe we could meet? By the next morning she was organizing a rescue effort that grew to a few hundred people. Teams of chainsaws and haulers were dispatched all over town. Descending upon a yard, there's a house in there somewhere, an hour or two later, all the debris was out to the curb. Incredible how hard everyone worked! Tents popped up for shade, food and drink just started arriving. Deliveries of supplies - some people there had no way to go get them - or if they had cars, they were destroyed, so stuff came to them. The damage is unimaginable. But so is the healing effort, in a much better way! 4 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsharr ★ Posted September 7, 2021 Share #2 Posted September 7, 2021 Yep, hard to describe the carnage left in the wake of tornado. Houses literally explode. Houses scrubbed off the foundation. Trees shattered and splintered. Around the edges of the damage is where it gets surreal with all the debris stuck in the trees. After a tornado in Edmond I recall finding the entire roof off a shed or small house that seemed to be intact, just ripped off and left laying in a field. Also found an entire six pack of Coors beer still in the plastic rings sitting in the same field. I was 12 or so. Tasted like crap..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donkpow Posted September 7, 2021 Share #3 Posted September 7, 2021 When I was fixing my brother's house after a tornado, the Red Cross food truck was driving around the neighborhood looking for people who wanted food. I told him I was from out of the area and had brought my lunch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12string Posted September 7, 2021 Author Share #4 Posted September 7, 2021 45 minutes ago, jsharr said: all the debris stuck in the trees Someone local mentioned shoes - she lost only one of the pair, looks like this. The other was found over 20 miles away. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickinMD ★ Posted September 8, 2021 Share #5 Posted September 8, 2021 Tornadoes, more than a very minor one once a decade, are a new, 21st Century thing for us in Maryland. Our's are still relatively minor, but we've had the roof of a football field concession stand ripped off and now stuff high in trees 70 yards away, another home where the inside is fairly intact but no one knows where the roof ended up, etc. I can most identify with the people who have to rebuild at a time when materials, appliances, building inspectors, etc. are still hard to find. I'm STILL waiting for my back porch's landing to be rebuilt. I've been getting by with the minimum in furnishings because most of the things I like in the furniture stores are still marked "out of stock" and won't be available for months. For a week, I my living room furniture was a lawn chair borrowed from my brother: I had been frantically searching furniture stores and nothing worth buying for me was available - almost all were too short to support the head on my 6'3" frame. My excellent recliner was finally ordered from Costco Online - luckily on sale for $200 off but still a high $799, hoping I was going to be able to rest my head on the adjustable headrest after measuring the dimensions on pictures and calculating proportions from the few given actual size measurement. It's fine. My excellent bed was available with a free base the electrically raises/lowers the head-end and a great mattress and pillows and was only bought at a good price because my June 30th return to my house coincided with furniture 4th of July sale at Mattress Firm plus a $50 online coupon. But I didn't go for the highly overpriced or in-stock because it's not-so-pretty bedroom furnishings available, so my nightstand is a tray table and my dressers are storage shelves. I spent hours and hours from April through late June researching and searching in a dozens of Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis area stores for the right kitchen appliances and washer/dryer - knowing I'd be cursing myself if I'd be spending years using inferior ones - and managed to do fine there, but only by going hundreds over the contractor's budget for each item. I wanted Oxford Blue siding on the house (gray with a hint of blue) but I couldn't get it or a lot of other non-white siding in the vertical (straight) siding I wanted. My contractor eventually found Oxford Blue in Dutch-lap (a bend in each piece of siding) and I settled for that. Then there were the delays in rebuilding because of a lack of inspectors due to the pandemic - which is currently hitting Louisiana harder than it ever hit Maryland. And what happens during rebuilding when the often-occurring termite damage is found and things are not up to code like the electrical service/wiring, etc? Insurance almost never covers that! That just scratches the surface of all the problems I encountered. That frustration is going to be fate of a lot of people in Louisiana, etc. and, with so many rebuilding they're going to find it tough to get their first choices in appliances, siding, roof shingles, etc, etc, etc, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longjohn ★ Posted September 8, 2021 Share #6 Posted September 8, 2021 22 hours ago, jsharr said: Also found an entire six pack of Coors beer still in the plastic rings sitting in the same field. I was 12 or so. Tasted like crap... It hasn’t changed 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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