It was a Dark & Stormy Night

Actually it was dark, and it was night, but it wasn’t stormy, yet. Early last Tuesday morning, the farmer and I were awakened by the howl of the tornado siren. We turned on the TV to find out what was going on. In approximately 20 minutes we were supposed to be hit by strong winds and rain with the possibility of tornado(s?) at the western edge of the system. Yes, it was a tornado warning, not watch.

The farmer went out to the barn to fasten doors and I closed all the windows, then we waited and watched the clock. Sure enough, at 1:05 am the wind roared then we heard a mighty crash! The farmer said, there goes one of the maples. I looked out the window and huge limbs were in the east yard, but a little north I could see something else.

When the wind died down, we looked closer. What we saw was the west barn roof wrapped around a tree. The farmer went outside to see the damage. No trees were down in the driveway, some limbs but nothing that couldn’t be cleaned up quickly. There was nothing we could do at 2 am, so back to bed we went, waiting for daylight so we could really see what it looked like.

This is metal roofing wrapped around a tree.

The wind just ripped the metal off of the barn. This is the west side. The auger is just fine!

And the east side.

The farmer called the contractor who has roofed the other barns and told him we had a roofing job for him. He came in the forenoon to see what was involved and said they would start working Wednesday morning. They needed a tele-handler that was being used at another farm that lost two roofs.

Wednesday morning they tore off the rest of the metal roofing. (This is the tele-handler.)

The electric lines to the barns were intact. That’s amazing!

Looking up at the sky from the haymow.

After they had the old metal off, they repaired the rafters. It made me nervous to watch them walk around up there.

Then they hammered on the 2 X 4’s to attach the new roofing to.

That was Wednesday’s barn work. In the evening, my friend and her family came and cleaned up the downed tree limbs.

On Thursday they finished nailing the boards and started attaching the roofing metal. In the early afternoon, 2 spring wagons filled with Old Order Mennonite (not Amish) men came trotting up the driveway. They had finished the roofs on the neighbors’ barns and came to help roof our barn. With their help, the crew was able to complete the roof! No one had to work on the 4th of July.

And the west side.

As I went out to the barn Friday morning, my yard looked like this.

The tree in front had the metal wrapped around it. The big maple in the center is the one the limbs broke off of.

It had been 3 days since the storm hit. The yard was clean up and the barn has a new roof.  The damage could have been so much worse. We are very thankful for our friends and neighbors who came and helped clean up and rebuild.