Wicked Weather

This Amarillo wind is nothing if not relentless. We survived a couple of days of pretty strong winds, but then last Saturday came upon us. Our area was under a "High Wind Warning" as well as a "Dust Storm Warning" (which we knew thanks to our trusty weather radio). When they said high wind, they weren't kidding. (And there was a pretty big wreck on the freeway due to a huge dust storm that caused it to be closed for quite a while.)

I think the official report from the Amarillo Airport was a top wind speed of 64mph. Brian thinks we had gusts higher than that here at our house (which sits up on a ridge). The couple of times I stepped outside, I felt like I could have been back in Houston in the middle of a hurricane (minus the rain).

Unfortuantely, our roof suffered more damage. We lost more shingles off the new section, but then parts of the old (existing) roof began to come flying off. This was a part of the roof that no one had even touched with all of our remodeling efforts (and this house is about 10 years old).

Brian felt it necessary to get up on the roof and try to save it from further damage. (I'll admit this makes me very nervous and worried.) The first time, his ladder got blown over and he said he was even contemplating jumping down until I happened to go outside to check on him and found him trapped. I couldn't lift the ladder back up by myself in the ferocious wind, so I got McKay to help me and the two of us barely managed to get it back up. (After that, Brian anchored the ladder to the house and tied a rope around himself.)

He nailed down some plywood over the old section that was coming apart (we will probably make an insurance claim at this point).


Our yard is now strewn (again) with shingles:


When he wasn't out trying to save the roof, Brian was up in the new section trying to brace the walls and roof better from the inside. He said the wall that was taking the brunt of the wind felt like it was just bending all over the place. But we figured that, barring an actual tornado, this might be the worst the wind gets, so if it held up this weekend, it ought to be pretty secure.


Starting Saturday night, our power would intermittently go out for a few seconds at a time. This happened all night long and into Sunday morning, until it went out for good shortly after the morning session of General Conference started. Brian was able to pull over the generator from the shop so we could watch the afternoon session huddled up in our blankets to stay warm. Our power came back on later that evening, but then the phone lines were down. We found out that the power pole at our nearest neighbor's house had an insulator wire come loose and hang down. The wind was then blowing it into the ground wire, shorting it for a few seconds before it would swing back. (Or something like that -- I'm not sure I understood all the details.) We're fortunate there wasn't a fire started or that we didn't have any major damage to our appliances.

The joys of weather and "country living"!