Disaster Relief

This week has been a bit challenging for us. Over the weekend water began dripping from one of our bedroom ceilings. At first we thought it was from a roof leak due to the ten million gallons of water that Tropical Storm Fay dumped on Charleston (I've never seen so much rain in my life). But when Fay left us, the dripping continued and after further investigation it turned out to be a leak in the A/C unit, which is in our attic. We turned the A/C off immediately.

On Monday, after we had contacted our insurance company, the entire ceiling in the room decided to collapse from the weight of the waterlogged insulation. We were out at the time and I can only imagine what Nomini must have thought when that happened (her poor nerves!). Luckily she wasn't in the room and we didn't have a ton of stuff in that room anyway. But it turned out to be a huge mess.

So all week we've been dealing with our insurance company and disaster relief specialists and contractors and adjusters. I've learned a ton about all of these things. It's strange, though, to see a huge Disaster Relief truck in your driveway (they're the folks responsible for cleaning up all the insulation and drying out the room, insulation, carpet, etc.). I can only imagine what the neighbors must think!

This has gotten me thinking about hurricanes and tornadoes and all of those horrible weather events that I'm already so scared of. Down here hurricane preparation is a way of life and folks think nothing of it. But not me. I think a lot of it! :)

Before the weather gurus knew what direction Fay was going to take, Dave and I decided we should probably get prepared. So the first thing we did was buy a crank weather radio. This thing is awesome. If we have to ride out a storm we'll at least be able to know when it's coming to destroy our home. We set up the radio and have it sitting in our living room.

The other night as we sat down for a quiet dinner, we were suddenly startled by a loud, ominous alarm. I almost fell off my chair and my hands and legs flailed in all directions as I ran through the house tracking the source of the alarm. Turns out if you have the weather radio tuned to the NOAA weather station, it sounds an alarm when a severe weather situation is occurring. That alarm sounds a lot because each time there's a storm here (which is pretty much every day) there is some tornado or risk of tornado that occurs somewhere in the tri-county area.

We decided the other day that the radio wasn't helping my weather nerves. We turned it off. At least we still have the radio in case of an emergency. But that alarm was totally stressing me out! I just hope I can make it through hurricane season with my nerves still in tact. Let's hope, too, that Gustav doesn't hit New Orleans and Mississippi too badly.