The aftermath, and final report..
One month ago today, at about this time in the afternoon the afternoon the 2 tornados struck Bellevue. They were not very big tornados (confirmed F-1's) by any stretch of the imagination, but they sure made a mess of things. Nobody killed or injured, almost unbelieveable!!
The total for actual damages and services (tree removal from the garage) to clean up the mess on our property is just shy of $10,000. Peanuts as compared to what could have been. Our contractor took care of the hazards immediately, and will make the balance of the repairs soon.
I can't say enough kind things about State Farm Insurance and specifically our agent Cindy Norcross and her staff. In a word....AWESOME!!! They have gone way above and beyond what I ever expected in my wildest dreams. No hassle, just results.
Family and friends, words almost fail me. Uncle Howie, and Jeff were here within the hour after the storm, starting to clean up the immediate hazards. Howie showed up Thursday morning with a brand new generator. Said we've got a lot of work to do, we're gonna ned to keep the beer cold. Hard to argue with that logic. The Brotherhood of Firefighters. Members of Rob's department were sent down with a generator for their house. Chief said make sure baby Brandon was taken care of. As for the firefighters....ulterior motive-cold beer.
Ohio Edison restored almost all power in the city within 72 hours. They had over 100 crews in here working on it. Now they are in the process of going through the city and replacing damaged poles, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 200.
Tree crews hired by the city initially went through and took care of immediate hazards first. Now they are going through and removing trees too damaged to survive. The storm twisted most of them so hard that their trunks "split". In the 4 blocks between here and Main St. we've lost over 40 trees so far and still counting. We have an Oak tree that sits in the right of way of the sidewalk. We share ownership with the city. It is estimated to be over 240 years old. It threw down one big limb during the storm, and had a few limbs "twisted" slightly. It still stands.....kind of defines the expression, "like a mighty Oak".
Life goes on, the city just looks a lot different than it used to. Barb is very "hinky" about any storm, understandably so. Our one dog, who did care much for storms anyway, is now a complete nervous wreck when anything starts to act like a storm. It will all get better in time.
