Life in Texas

I love living in Texas. You don't have to shovel sunshine and it doesn't get bitter cold. It's a big state and I'm still exploring it. You can travel all day by auto and still be in Texas. Out in western Texas and the Panhandle, it's mostly tumbleweeds and big sky! It's beautiful and I can't wait to see the rest of it. But there is a downside to the weather. The storms are more violent than I've ever experienced in my life!

I was born in Massachussets, lived in upstate New York for the first years of my life and then moved to Chicago, IL. Then my father transferred to Springfield, IL and lived there until my early twenties.

Springfield is tornado prone. I don't know how many times during the spring and summer, we hung out in our basement waiting out the storms. I loved watching the storms! Then, I moved back to Chicago and experienced more storms, snow and cold, cold weather.

Got married, had a child and moved back east to Pennsylvania. More snow, more cold but where we lived, we avoided tornadoes. I think it's because the house was on a mountain, the tornadoes would occur in the valley below us. We still had bad storms and lots of snow but I still was fascinated with storms.

I don't care what people say but the storms here in Texas are scary. I never used to be afraid but now I am. Maybe it's because the land of our development used to be a ranch that never recorded severe weather, but the storms are horrific leaving severe damage.

In 2011, we experienced a hail storm that damaged our roof, fence, air conditioning units, our patio furniture and window screens. It was expensive and our insurance rates went through the roof (no pun intended)! Having holes in your roof of your house makes you not take things for granted.

Silly me. I thought that was a once and done deal. Ha! We got home from Chicago on Saturday and of course I had errands to run. I spent most of Saturday doing just that. Yes, the forecast on Sunday called for severe storms and I thought nothing about it. Since 2011, we've been dodging them.

Sunday evening, the storm came out of nowhere and the hail was the size of a softball. It pummelled our roof for a good fifteen minutes! No! Not again! We didn't lose power and we ran around the inside of the house and didn't see any holes. But the next morning, we saw the damage outside. I'm not a roofer, but it didn't look as bad as in 2011, but what do I know? We had three damaged gutters and I checked the downspouts for signs of roof debris and only saw it one gutter. Two of our plastic deck chairs were broken and an outside planter was damaged. The holes in our lawn from the embedded hail made our lawn look like a putting green.

Then I heard from my friends in the development across the street from ours. Skylights were broken, windows were broken, cars were totalled and the list went on. Now, there are roofing contractor signs in everyone's yards except ours.

I called my insurance agent and he is sending a professional out to look at it, The roof is only six years old and I don't know the age of the other roofs. But I don't want my rates to go up again! I'm trying not to panic...

Oh? And as I write this, guess what? We are under another tornado warning....never a dull moment!