I got caught in the middle of a storm Saturday night. My neighborhood is nothing but downed trees and debris. Most of the houses are intact, but many of them suffered major roof damage with trees falling on them.

It rained so hard that my outside drain got clogged up (right outside the door to my family room) and water gushed under the door and through every crack in the concrete, so now I have mushy carpet there. I can't do anything about it yet, because I haven't had electricity since Saturday night, and it my be several days before it's back on.

I was surprised to see a couple of squirrels scurrying around this morning. Yesterday there wasn't a bird or squirrel in sight, except for some carcasses and one that could barely move.

There were piles of hail all over the place. Some about 3 foot in diameter and 6 inches high of fused together small stones.

Wow... sounds like a heck of a storm.

I've never seen (heck, never imagined) a pile of hail before... what kind of temperatures did you have ?

Temperature was probably in the upper 50 to lower 60's.

I remember, around 11:30pm hearing high winds while the house was pelted with hail. This went on for about 30 min until I fell asleep. Once asleep, I can sleep through anything. It's a wonder I didn't wake up in a field somewhere, naked, and wondering how I got there.

Insurance adjuster will be looking at my house for possible roof and water damage in a day or 2.

Link to local story

Another link, same storm.

Dude, why do humans live there?

Training for missions to Mars?

Sorry to hear you had damage though Cat. We learn to tighten up our houses quiet a bit from the occasional blizzard rolling through in the winter. It always sucks when the storm wins and they can, no matter how well you prepare.

Doesn't sound too different than a hurricane (ask me how I know..) Take lots of pictures and get that wet carpet and padding out before the mildew causes more damage than the water. You can claim fiduciary responsibility to protect your property from further damage if the adjuster gets their panties in a wad over you taking the carpet out (or drywall/insulation, etc.)

Also, if the damage is significant, you can look forward to your mortgage company holding the funds while you foot the bill for the repairs. They do have to release a certain portion to help you get started, but after that it's peacemeal and receipts are required.

Best of luck. Keep us informed on the progress.

Getting that carpet out sounds like a good idea. My plans were to wait until the elec gets restored (by tonight, I heard), then run a wet/dry vac (which I'll have to wait until Friday before I have the money). There is a ton of stuff sitting on this carpet, including my Axiom shipping boxes.

I won't be paying for anything for a long long while, because in July, about half of everything I owned broke and I'm still working on getting things replaced and my bills caught up on. My savings was already totally wiped out.

So, unless the insurance company pays up front, nothing is going to get fixed. I had to have my fireplace relined about 4 years ago and the money went straight from the insurance company to the fireplace company.

Makes me glad I live where I do. Best of luck.

My electricity was restored sometime last night while I was asleep. Sure is nice to not have to light candles to see what I'm doing.

Well, it's been a week since the storm here at my house. I've been working in the evenings since last Monday to clear out my garage and moved all of the material I've torn out and ruined boxes. It's a pile of stuff about the size of a van. I have all of the carpet and padding torn out of the room that got flooded.

The American Family insurance adjuster has come and gone, along with a salesman for a local roofing company. I have to wait 7 to 10 days for a response back from the insurance company, but he said that I was getting a new roof. But I'm not getting anything for the wet and ruined carpet I had to tear out, because I don't have flood insurance. One of my neighbors said his insurance couldn't sell him flood insurance because we don't live in a flood plane. I'm going to have to check with my insurance company, but it probably won't do any good. They'll probably say something along the lines of, oh we would have sold it to you, but you never asked for it, blah, blah.

Hope things work out, Brian. Will the insurance pay the roofers, or do they make the payment to you, then let you hire whomever you want?

When I had my fireplace chimney relined, they paid the fireplace company, so my guess is they will make the check out to the roofer.

I would consider asking them for a payment, and hiring someone to do the job if possible(get a few quotes first). It could save a few $$ that you might put into any other repairs.

Well the insurance company is going to do it their way, I'm sure. I doubt they would do this because it's possible I could just take it all and put it on Red at the local casino here in town instead. Come on Red. Red. Red.

Speaking of red. I'm thinking instead of re carpeting the floor, I'm going to tile it in some shiny red and white tiles in a checkerboard fashion. 1 to 1 1/2 foot tiles. Preferably with a marble look to them. But, it all depends on cost.

I dug out the paperwork from my glovebox today and went over it this morning. The paperwork from the insurance adjuster and the salesman that showed up at my door at the same time. This is from last Saturday afternoon of last week.

When I read over the paperwork from the salesman, I see that he seems more of a scam artist than someone representing a real company. From the things that he said, this points more toward scam artist. I had signed a spot where he said this allows him to look at my roof so he can bid on the job. But a complete reading says it hires his company as the one to do the job.

I have asked him twice for references and have gotten none so far. He's also not local, but from the next state over. The contract says I have 3 days to cancel and today is the 6th day. So, I called my insurance company and told them about him. They said just to call him, cancel and send him a cancellation letter, all of which I did.

I hate shysters.

He sounds like a Shifter.

Nah.

Millions of people have flood insurance that don't live in a floodplain, it's to cover water damage just like you experienced Brian. We don't live in a floodplain but wouldn't consider not having flood insurance due to the number of tropical storms we have.

Good luck with everything and get that flood insurance!

Coworker of mine just found out that his basement flooding wasn't covered.

With flood insurance Ken?

I don't think he had flood insurance, no.

Oh, that makes sense then.

We've found that usually any water damage whatsoever has to be covered through flood insurance and where we live we also have a separate windstorm policy just for hurricanes in addition to homeowner's and flood.

Windstorm is a state mandated policy for anybody living within 5 miles (IIRC) of the coast and the premiums got so out of hand after the last hurricanes that a large number of the the folks who had their houses paid off here on the island dropped their insurance polices altogether. Speaking with my agent a few years back I was told that some of his customers with large homes were paying upwards of $50-$150k annually just for the windstorm policy.

For some reason, I did get earthquack coverage. Not sure why now, I don't thing we've ever had a devastating earthquack here in Kansas City.