Two weeks ago we witnessed our first big Amarillo windstorm and learned a valuable lesson in the process. We were watching the storm from our living room window, looking out the front of our house. The lightning was flashing non-stop. The wind was coming down in sheets so fast we could hardly see anything outside our window, and the wind was blowing so hard that the little saplings in our neighborhood were almost touching the ground. We were watching in awe. In Luke's words "Cinders and ashes!" (Luke has been watching Thomas the Tank Engine.) And right about that time we heard a thump from the backyard. Jared ran to the backdoor and looked outside to find that our trampoline (just over 2 weeks old) was GONE! He ran outside to investigate and found it on our roof. The lightning was so extreme that Jared couldn't do much, but he climbed up onto the roof and knocked it back down into our yard enough that he could tie it to our house with a rope, thus keeping it from blowing off the roof into our neighbor's yard or doing more damage to the house. When the storm was over, Jared took a few photos:
We rolled it off the house and found it completely mangled like this:
Rim bent, enclosure smashed, and the bounce mat shredded from where the roof cut right through the middle. My first reaction was a sickening disappointment. We chose to live in a house specifically so we could have a backyard, specifically so we could have a trampoline. We didn't have the money to replace it. And after 2 weeks it was destroyed. But Jared put things back into perspective for me. After the storm died and we went to investigate the damage, we saw that the roof was fine. In fact all that happened was one crack in the fence:
The trampoline could have broken out a window or worse. So we were very lucky.
And we got more lucky. The next day, after work, Jared pulled out a hammer and dinged around. He was able to fix the frame and the enclosure. And then we got a check in the mail reimbursing us for insurance paid in VA which meant we had enough money to replace the jumping mat.
So we're back in business!
1 comment:
That is so sad about the trampoline, but it sounds like Jared managed to salvage it: way to go, Jared! My parents had a trampoline when we moved houses between middle school and high school. I decided to go on my own little adventure out there one night and sleep on the trampoline under the stars. But I couldn't find it! When I came in and told my parents, they teased me that I was just too tired. But in the morning, we all realized it wasn't there and had blown away into the swamp. Then again they tried to get one for the grandkids and it got taken by some strong winds and got bent up. Conclusion: trampolines are hard to keep ahold of.
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