As it would happen, a major storm hit Lynchburg several days before leaving on this trip to Ireland. On Friday night, 75mph winds rushed up the hill where we live ripping trees from the ground and twisting them into pretzels. Three large trees fell against our house and one plunged through the roof and into our guest room.
We lost electricity, water, phones, cable, internet, and had very limited cell service. With only 3 days to pull things together before leaving, there was a lot of work to do. Very early on Saturday morning, we decided to leave the house and explore the yard. Debris was everywhere, branches were scattered, roof tiles were thrown around the yard, and the damage was extensive throughout the neighborhood. We located the trees that had fallen on the house. They had been uprooted and the root ball was almost 28 fee from side to side!
Very early Saturday morning, Reece and his crew were at the house to tackle the job of removing the trees. It was a slow, 10-hour process meticulously executed so that no further damage would be done. It was amazing to watch them work so carefully and methodically – quite impressive work!
On Sunday, I had two different roofing companies stop by the house to give me estimates on fixing the damage. One decided the job was too much for him and opted out but the other has done work in the neighborhood before so, I’m fairly confident we will be hiring him to fix our roof. Still, no electricity, water, phones, internet, cable, and limited cell service.
Cindy made the house as comfortable as possible and we set up on the terrace level where it was much cooler than the rest of the house. Powered by a generator, we were able to keep the refrigerator going and turn on a few fans to circulate the air. But after four nights without electricity or water, we both really wanted to jump into a hot shower!
My brother and sister-in-law got their power turned back on Monday. They invited us to come spend the night at their place in the cool air and a shower. We glad accepted that invitation. The last thing I really wanted was to get on a plane for a 12-hour flight without a shower!
DEPARTURE FOR IRELAND – TUESDAY
Before the drive to the airport, we stopped by the house to make sure things were okay. Everything looked good but we still had no electricity or water. As I put my suitcase in the car and drove to pick up Chase, we noticed that Appalachian Electric Power repair trucks were at the bottom of our hill – that was great to see! Cindy dropped us off at the airport and by 4pm, electricity had been restored to our house!
Chase and I flew from Lynchburg to Charlotte, NC and had a brief delay. There was some confusion about checking our luggage all the way too Belfast. USAir wanted initially wanted us to retrieve it in London and recheck it with FlyBE. We had such a short layover, that was going to be impossible. They managed to figure out all the details and check it all the way through for us – thankfully!
Once we landed in Charlotte, we hung out in the US Airways Lounge for a couple of hours before boarding the overnight flight to London Gatwick. We arrived around 7:30am, made our way through immigration/passport control and then boarded our 8:50am flight to Belfast. As I write this, we are preparing to land. Today will be a busy day and we hit the ground running!