11/7/08 Update: Jeremy and I drove around this morning to see the fire damage from yesterday. It burned many, many acres, jumped a couple dirt roads...it started about 3 miles or so NW of our place, and they got it stopped only 1/2 mile straight up wind from our place, headed straight for us. Once again, thank you Lord for your protection!!
It's only 3:45 pm, and this has already been "one of those days." Amazingly, everything that has gone wrong today has been due to the wind! Living in Kansas, you kind of get used to the wind...it blows all the time....but today was just unusually crazy. The wind has been blowing steady 40-50 mph, with gusts up to 60 mph, all day long.
You know it's windy when:
-The drive through portion of the fast food place is "closed due to high winds."
-The flag pole in someone's yard has bent all the way over and is touching the ground.
-You go to Wal-Mart and notice one of their "cart corrals" laying in the empty lot next door.
-Your kitten tries to walk across the yard to come visit you and just about blows away.
-On the drive home your van is hit so hard by a tumbleweed the tail light is knocked out:
That was the beginning of our troubles. Then, we got home and saw our shed. The 300+ lb sliding door was, at first glance, slid open. At second glance, we realized it was completely off the track. Jeremy went out to try to fix it, and when I looked out the window this is what I saw:
The wind was blowing so blasted hard he couldn't even hang on to the door. I went out to try to help, not that I'm strong enough to do much. We obviously were not going to be able to get the door back in place, so first we tried to get some straps around the door and tie it down so it wouldn't damage the building too bad. Unfortunately, once we got the strap around it there was no where to tie it. Jeremy was standing there holding the door down against the building yelling at me to get him the hook end of the rope when the wind gusted so hard his feet were slipping out from under him. Keep in mind Jeremy is 6'3, 280, and very very muscular. The wind lifted the door upwards as he was hanging onto it, taking him up with it. He let go, flew backwards and landed on his back, then proceeded to roll and somersault 4-5 times from the momentum of the fall. It's ok, you can laugh!!! We are both laughing now picturing it again. His knee is really sore, but other than that he seems to be fine.
By this point, Jeremy was so mad he decided he would let the door go, and the wind could blow it over to the next pasture or wherever. So then he TRIED to get the door loose and off the track (it was barely hanging on by this point) but the blasted thing wouldn't let go.
Finally, he got a strap part way around the door and then drove his truck up against it to keep it from flapping. This 300+ lb door was flapping like a flag in that wind. Before we got home and got it secured, it banged up the side of the shed, twisted the track, wrecked the corner gutter, and even put a dent or two in the roof. Luckily we have insurance, hopefully they cover this!
But wait! There's more! We got inside, and I bandaged up the cut on Jeremy's finger (he doesn't even know how he got that, but it's pretty deep) and wrapped up his knee, then I told him to sit with his feet up for a while. 5 minutes later the phone rings. It's the rural fire department saying we are right in the path of a range fire and were being advised to evacuate our home. We looked out the window and realized what we thought had been dust in the air was really smoke, and it was getting pretty thick. I grabbed the babies and diaper bags, Jeremy grabbed the dog, and we grabbed a few things like our laptops, camera, and a box of photo albums. We tried to get the cat but she sensed the panic I guess and wouldn't let us catch her, so we left a window cracked open for her in case she needed to escape.
We saw the fire; it was maybe 2 miles from our house and the wind was blowing it in the direction of our place. We went into town and got lunch, ran a couple errands, and drove back by here to see they had gotten the fire under control. Right then, they called us back and said it was safe to return home, so here we are! Relaxing and hoping there is no more excitement for today. :-p
THANK YOU LORD, for keeping us and our home safe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Funny side note: Probably because I'm weird, and because I have a big imagination, I have laid in bed many nights thinking about what I would save from a fire if I had a chance. I've had it all planned out carefully. But today, when Jeremy said "we need to get what we can and get out of here" my mind went totally blank, and I was running in circles not knowing what to do! LOL I ended up doing ok, though: I remembered the babies :-), and the dog :-)! I got my box of my old photo albums and my computer which has most of our most important pictures saved on it. I even grabbed our cameras. Everything else is just "stuff" that can mostly be replaced.
