It's been about a year and a half since we moved into our new home.  Everything was going really well.  My gardens were blooming and were the envy of the block--I got so many compliments from my neighbors.  We were working on getting the guest room fixed up and purchasing some furniture that we needed.  My uncle and his wife from Texas are coming for a visit at the end of this month and we were so excited to show them the new house for the first time.

The hail storm begins...

But around 1:00 in the morning this past Wednesday, the heavens opened up and rained down hell on us.  For about an hour it was just thunder and lightening.  I was laying in bed trying to comfort my dogs and then I heard the knock of hail on the roof.  I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs.  I wheeled my lily pot in as far back to the door as possible then grabbed my potted geranium.  I didn't even have time to grab the saucer it sits in before I got hit with a quarter-sized hailstone on the inside of my arm.  It left a nice bruise.  Next I ran and got the potted daylily just outside the back door--it's my sister's and I just couldn't let that go either.  Then I went back inside to get out of harm's way.  For nearly an hour, my mom and I watched as a deluge of rain and hail came down, the hailstones getting bigger each minute.  We watched as hail punched holes in our porch railing.  We watched as my beautiful gardens got destroyed.


We moved about the house, checking things, watching.  Listening to the sounds of large hail pounding the house like millions of baseballs falling from the sky.  It was then that I heard the creak of weak glass coming from the master bedroom.  I ran in and looked for the source.  I found it just as the glass in a window of the master bathroom shattered.  I quickly closed the door to the the bathroom and the master bedroom.  The power was already out and I didn't want to be picking glass out of my two dogs' paws in the dark.

The broken window in the scrapbooking loft taken from inside the night of the storm.

I ran upstairs to my scrapbooking loft above the master bedroom.  I quickly shut the interior shutters all the way and began moving my scrapbooking tools and supplies that were stored in stackable cubes under the window.  My mom joined me upstairs, one dog in arm, the other trailing her.  At this point, hail had broken the glass of the window and was pounding against the interior shutters, pushing them open.  My mom had to hold the shutters closed as I moved things out of the way.  Water began pouring into the house and down the wall.  The pounding of the hail was so loud we had to yell at each other over the noise.

The pile of hail in the corner of our driveway that was just over a foot deep.

Once all of my scrapbooking stuff was safe, I got towels from my linen closet.  My mom began mopping up the water, yelling at me to get the wood from the garage to cover the broken window.  I ran back downstairs and out to the garage, my other dog following me.  I dug out the wood that was used to ship my ScrapBox to me and brought them upstairs.  I couldn't find the large black trash bags my mom wanted so we went back down for those.  I got the wood panels covered in black trash bags while my mom cleaned up the glass.  Then we got the panels into my window, covering the majority of the hole in the window pane.

Just some of the damage to our porch railing.

At this point, another hour had passed and the hail and rain were finally starting to slow down.  But the lights kept going in and out and it was hard to see in such darkness, even with flashlights and a Coleman lantern.  We went downstairs to clean up the mess in the master bathroom.  We closed the dogs out of the bedroom and listened to them whine as we cleaned up broken glass and rain water.  I went downstairs to the basement to find a large cardboard box to cover the bathroom window with.

The largest hailstone I could find that night measured 2 and a quarter inches.  There were reports of hailstones over 3 inches in diameter--in other words, baseball-sized hail.

Once we had everything cleaned up as best as we could and the rain and hail stopped, we went outside to asses the damage.  It was hard to see it all in the dark, but we knew it was really bad.  There was debris everywhere.  My gardens were almost completely destroyed. A pile of hail collected in the corner of our driveway that was a little over a foot deep.  The power was back on, but our phone line was taken out by hail.  

My poor hosta that was so large and beautiful now pulverized.  Broken solar lights were strewn amongst the wreckage of my garden.

With the sunlight later that morning came the realization of just how complete and utter the devastation was.  I took my dogs out first thing after getting up in the morning.  Seeing the destruction in the daylight was so much worse.  I thought I was going to be sick.  My gardens that I worked so hard on, that are an homage to my mom's father and my dad's mother, were nearly wiped out.  My mom's new fence that was only a month old had holes all over the top of it.  The model home's fence looked like Swiss cheese.  The east side of all the homes in the neighborhood had chunks of vinyl siding missing and broken windows.

Photos don't show the actual damage as much as seeing it in person, but the whole side of the house was pocked with holes in the vinyl siding.

I called my mom who had already left for work that morning.  She described the neighborhood as she drove out.  She said devastation was everywhere.  She took her insurance information with to call them that morning to file a claim.  I called my sister to ask her to come help me clean up broken glass and sharp bits of vinyl siding.  Reports were coming in on all the news outlets that morning that this was the biggest overnight hailstorm in the county in over 20 years.

The model homes next-door to us and the model home's fence.  We think this house got hit worse than ours, but not by much.

I went out right away to start cleaning while waiting for my sister.  Many of my neighbors were home cleaning up the mess, mostly because they couldn't get to work.  Every car that was left outside had a broken window or windshield.  I went across the street to my neighbor who sweeping up glass in her driveway and said, "Good morning, but I don't know how good it really is."  She told me about how she and her dog were lying in bed when hail hit the window in the bedroom, shattering it and spraying glass across her and the dog.  We both agreed that it was a very scary night.

The broken window in the scrap loft from outside later that morning.

I got to work cleaning up debris, cutting branches hanging off the tree and cleaning up my flower beds out front.  I made piles of plant material to pick up later and threw vinyl siding bits into a box and glass shards into a bucket.  As I worked, I watched as people who were able to drive their cars, drive up and down the street looking at the devastation.  Their eyes were huge.  Some were in shock.  I was numb.

The broken window in the master bathroom later that morning.

When my sister, Caitlin, arrived, I was inside taking a break between doing the front yard and the back yard.  She walked in the house and cursed.  "A bunch of your neighbors are getting their cars towed!  I can't believe how much damage there is!  It's everywhere!"

Piles of unmelted hail filled with roof shingle grit surrounds one of our beat-up down spout extenders.

She said nearly everyone had at least one if not multiple broken windows.  She was concerned there wouldn't be any plywood left at Lowe's by the time her husband, Alex, came down to board up the windows that evening after work.  She thought that we should get some right away.  But with her two-door coup and my small sedan, there was no way we were getting plywood on our own.  I called our dad.  He has a company truck.  I had to leave him a message.

The bucket of glass and box of vinyl debris picked up outside.

He called back within 20 minutes.  "What happened?" he asked.  I had to explain the events of early this morning.  "We didn't get any rain up at the cabin last night.  I just saw the lightening," he said.  I told him that is because all the rain and hail fell on us.  I asked if he could help us get a sheet of plywood for the two broken windows.  He brought it later that day.

My poor garden in the backyard.  Caitlin and Alex's dog, Dante, was there for emotional support.

After talking to our dad, we got to work out back.  There was even more debris in the backyard.  More shattered glass, more vinyl siding shards and more vinyl fence chunks.  I was scratching through piles of hail that had not melted yet, trying to pick glass and vinyl out of them.  We went around the fence line and picked up chunks of vinyl fencing.  We tossed river rock that had been knocked into the grass back into the rock beds.  Then we cleaned up the plant debris in the front and backyards.  But there was one bright spot.  The rosebush that I had just planted a week ago, had two blooms on it that had opened up.  I planted this rosebush in honor of my mom's dad.  At every house he moved in to, he planted several rosebushes.  They were always beautiful and I sorely missed the one at my old house.  It was like my Opa (grandfather) had been watching over the rosebush and gave me a sign the next morning, that everything would be okay in the end.  And the gazing ball that was my Oma's (grandmother's) was safe and sound.  Hope springs eternal.  

The two blooms I found that morning

Once inside, we ate a late lunch and rested as we waited for our mom and Alex.  And that is when the people descended on us.  Construction and restoration representatives.  The doorbell was constantly ringing and my cell phone was ringing off the hook.  All of them trying to get us to sign a contract to help fix our roof, siding, fence, windows, etc.  Many were nice, understanding even.  Some a little more pushy than others.  It was overwhelming.  I was just thankful that our landline was taken out in the hail storm so that the house phone wasn't also ringing like crazy.

Our phone box on the side of the house got hit so badly the cover was torn off and the wiring inside was shredded, causing our land line to go out.

Our fencing guy stopped by.  His wife works with my mom.  After hearing from my mom about last night, she called her husband and told him to get down there and assess the damage to our fence so we'd have a quote for the insurance company.  He was the only person outside of family I was happy to see at that point.  

Our 1-month-old fence with chunks taken out of it.

The number of people coming to the house slowed down as the sun began to set.  Alex had arrived and we all got to work--Caitlin and I helped him measure the windows while my mom began to make dinner.  I vacuumed broken glass still left in the window sill while Alex and Caitlin cut the plywood.  We had to insert the plywood inside.  We didn't have a ladder long enough to get to the second floor window to board the window up outside.  We added more black garbage bags to help keep moisture out if it rained again.  Luckily we had just the right amount of plywood.  We ate dinner and sent Caitlin and Alex home.  We were exhausted, shattered and broken hearted.


The next day, Thursday, was much the same, except without cleanup.  Just more people coming to the door wanting to do business with us.  The phone company came out and fixed our phone line.  Then the landline was ringing off the hook.  By the end of the day, I was sick and tired of people in general.  I just wanted some peace and quiet.  And Friday was the same after that, though it had slowed some.  Saturday was slower as well.  Many of my neighbors had already signed contracts and had signs in their yard.  But as we were talking to two workers from one company, I watched as a small prop plane flew over the neighborhood with a large banner proclaiming hail damage repair.  Let me repeat that:  A plane flew over our house with a banner about hail damage repair.  It was so obtrusive.  So cold.  Luckily, the workers we were speaking to outside were not from that company.  Later, my mom tore up and threw away the flyer from the company that flew the plane over our neighborhood.

It is now Saturday evening as I write this.  The doorbell has mercifully stopped ringing and so have all our phones.  We are still waiting to see our insurance adjuster.  My mom thinks she may have decided on a repair company to contract with.  I'm dreaming about what my gardens would have looked like if this hadn't happened.

My front yard garden bed, also mostly destroyed.  Even the grass got beat up badly.

At some point during the week, my mom realized that every home that her parents bought, both our family homes, the ones we had all lived in until moving into this new house, received damage during a large rainstorm within a two year period of purchasing the home.  The first house, bought back in 1965 was a new build.  That summer, a huge rainstorm hit the whole area.  Flooding was so bad people died in this storm.  Luckily my family's house was near the top of the hill so there was no water damage, but it received hail damage to the roof and the aluminum screen doors and window screens--basically, a brand new house needed major repairs.  Back then, you could still do your own roof.  My mom remembers her bother and dad redoing their roof and that she even helped out a little even though she was still really young.  She said her parents were always looking for ways to save money.

Our outdoor tile table.  These are just a few of the cracks and chips.  There is also denting around the metal frame.

The second home was purchased in 1975 and during the second summer in that house, my mom said they had what she refers to as a "gully washer," a large amount of rain in a very short period of time.  My mom remembers the front porch flooding and noticing that it was getting really close to coming inside.  My Oma got a little panicked and then water began flooding in under the doors.  My mom said that the areas around the doors got wet and they had to sop up everything with towels, but the rain subsided and they were just left with a big mess.

My hanging potted plants that were destroyed.  The hummingbird feeder made it through with minimal damage.

Apparently the tradition of initiating a new home in our family has continued.  We will need all the siding replaced on the east side of our home, new gutters, a whole new roof and vents, new trim on three sides of the home, replacements to parts of our porch banister, most of the top railing of our fence replaced, two new windows and possibly a new garage door (luckily our cars were safe inside the garage).  Our new grill we got a few weeks ago is dented and some of the ceramic paint has chipped off and our outdoor tile table has cracks and chips in it.  And of course there are my gardens. The shrubs are a little worse for wear but my potted annuals are decimated.  My garden beds were nearly completely destroyed.  The saucer my geranium sat in was shattered.  My bee waterer was shattered.  My glass bird bath was completely destroyed.  My hanging potted annuals were knocked off the shepherd's hook and the pots have baseball hail sized holes in them.  Our newest hummingbird feeder shattered but luckily the hummingbird feeder made by Desert Steel that looks like a fuchsia survived.  Just a small dent and a small chip.  The only things that are okay are that rosebush, the new butterfly bush we planted and all of the potted plants I managed to save, along with our fuchsia and hydrangea which were already back by the front door.  I'm devastated.  I hope some of my plants come back from this but it looks really bad.

I know that it could have been worse.  We don't have a large hole in our roof and our cars are safe.  We are safe.  But the emotional devastation for us is huge.  This was our fresh start.  And now we are having to start over yet again in many aspects.


Earlier today, I noticed the rosebush gave me two more blooms.  Thank you, Opa.  Hope springs eternal.