Haven’t been on CC in the past few days as we’ve been managing things with my dad in Augusta.
My dad lives right outside Augusta in Columbia County, GA. 99% of folks are still without power. Richmond (Augusta), Chatham (Savannah) and Columbia (suburban Augusta) are the top three counties on the blackout list.
Dad’s house was hit by six trees – two of the bedrooms now have lovely views of the sky! It’s bad, bad, bad. Reported 102 mph gusts at the time of the damage. Broken joists, water damage, drywall and insulation everywhere. His truck was damaged, but mostly just cosmetic, which was a minor miracle – it was completely covered by trees and branches. The trees were on the opposite side of the yard – but were tall enough to hit the house. His isn’t even the most severely damaged house in the neighborhood.
One of my sisters is local and after much convincing, Dad finally agreed to stay with her Friday and Saturday nights. My niece found Georgia Power’s policy on restoring power – GP won’t do it if you have structural damage, even though Dad’s on the priority restoration list because he uses oxygen at night. That seems to have sunk in.
My other sibs drove down from NW GA and KY to help, and they got a lot of the wet stuff cleared out – but since there’s no electricity, we can’t run big fans.
USAA somehow got tree guys from FLA to come up and Sunday they got things cleared enough so my B and BIL could tarp the roof. My sister drove around the neighborhood and says 80% of the houses have damage. The videos are devastating. About 1/3 have trees on/in the house. Georgia pines don’t do well in big storms. There has been a curfew the last couple nights.
My sibs have ok’d using the photos they’ve taken, but I’m not showing any parts that would be searchable on Google so that my dad has privacy and safety. He’s staying with one of my other sibs for a while, and I will go down when he returns.
While Dad was incredibly stubborn about wanting to stay in a house that has no power and is exposed to the elements, I also realize that staying at home means he can still go to his water aerobics classes, church, grocery store and astronomy club events, and go deliver communion to his shut-in families who are now some of his dearest friends. Those are the things that at age 87, feed his body and soul. I worry that being in another state may prove very isolating, even if he’s with family and great-grandkids.
Hole in one of the bedrooms
From the upstairs deck
The back slant of the roof isn’t supposed to look like that!
Trees that hit the roof and truck
Other bedroom with insulation on the bed, drywall hanging
All that said, we are lucky. Can’t even fathom having towns swept away by water. My nephew was coming up for S2 and DIL’s local wedding reception and had left ATL Thursday night and drove to just east of Asheville to spend the night so he could get ahead of the storm. Instead, he woke up to it, but was on the outer edges. Things could have gone so sideways.
