Coming Home

So after the Burger King left, and the power finally came back on, this is what we found (Charles had done considerable clean-up before we got home):

Here's the front of the house (the shutters are closed because the window was broken in the storm). Charles had been pulling the kids' wagon around the house picking up the trash that was all over our yard. The house next door is under construction, and lots of construction debris was scattered in our yard (shingles, vinyl siding, general trash, etc.). Their chimney even flew off during the storm and hit Charles' truck. Doesn't look too bad for a week after the storm.

A close-up of the damage to our roof. Relatively few shingles compared to most other houses around here.

Broken window. I'm getting pretty tired of cleaning up pieces of glass -- they seem to just keep showing up. I noticed the mulch in our flower beds is full of glass too, so I guess I'll have to wear gloves when I work out there for a while. The kids' swingset, with the slide flipped up. It is actually just barely poking through our neighbors' fence. Thank goodness it wasn't any closer to their fence. The fort part of it appears to be ok, but Charles will probably have to rebuild the swing part.

Most of our damage is small, like the doorbell. We have some broken outdoor outlets (the covers broke off), all of our trees are leaning, all the annuals and most of the perennials are dead or uprooted, but all of the shrubs are looking good, so at least that's something. Damage at our rent house was slightly more severe, but still not as bad as it could have been.

It really wasn't bad, considering what it could have been, but I've decided I don't like Burger Kings anymore and will stick with McDonalds from now on.