The Thunderstorm From Hell

On Thursday night we finally got rain. It was a welcome relief, or at least it started that way. It came pouring down. Lightening, thunder, winds. And then the winds turned angry and decided to see if they could blow us all the way to Kansas or something. It was about 7:00 in the evening, and still light before the storm clouds gathered. Once the heavens broke loose with everything, however, it was almost dark. There was even a period of time as the wind howled through the trees of the neighborhood and the rain slashed down (or more accurately, slashed across) that we could not see across the street. It lasted about 10-15 minutes and then moved off, but the damage was done. This picture was taken just before I was finally able to go outside, but it was taken through a bedroom window. 

That’s Mort, our 11-year old maple tree. May he Rest In Peace. Notice in the picture below how our portion of the lawn is dry because we adhere to the city’s twice-per-week watering schedule. Our neighbor apparently does not. This thundershower aside, we are in the midst of Utah’s worst drought ever.

Mort has sustained a fatal injury and will need to be cut down, a job for a contractor with two arms. Two neighbors came by with a chain saw and helped cut the fallen limb down and haul it out to the street. There are lots of brokcn and uprooted trees in the neighborhood, so Murray City says they’ll be by next week to pick up the debris. We have lots of limbs of other trees to haul out to the curb

Bruce has to tie up my rose tree since its ties came loose from the stake and it is curved gracefully to the ground. Luckily, it’s not broken and will be fine.

Now, if that were the worst of it, I could live with it. But while the storm was raging, I decided to go into my basement studio to make sure everything there was alright. It wasn’t. There was water pouring in through the window casing and soffit above my ironing board and between my two fabric shelves.  Here’s an “after” picture of the area involved.

The blinds were attached to the soffit/casing above (as opposed to the sides). They came down. Bruce ran and got towels while I moved the ironing board, quilts, fabric and shelves away (it’s amazing how strong and quick you can be in a moment of panic!) Here’s the soffit:

Yuk. It looks to me like there’s mold there - perhaps the problem has been around longer than we think. We don’t know if it’s the window that’s leaking or what. It’s one of two windows in the house we did not replace because it was already double paned. The picture below is the paneling that’s on that wall - you can see how it has bubbled. And that bubbling is just from the last year since I had it repainted. Some of that bubbling was there before, but I naively thought it was from the steam of the iron. *slaps head* That’ll teach me to wait until a problem becomes a PROBLEM.

Here’s the window area from the outside (note the lovely clump of weeds...). No apparent issues with the bricks or foundation. The water did not come from above, because this area sits just below the master bedroom, and that wall and carpet and ceiling are just fine. It’s not the roof because that’s not very old either. To me, it almost HAS to be the window, because water will travel and follow the path of least resistance.

Our insurance (Safeco) has been great so far, but I’ve made it clear that I don’t want them to just cut a check for estimated damages. I want an expert out here to troubleshoot the issue and determine what caused the problem. We want to know the cause and get it fixed once and for all so it won’t happen again. At least I can finally replace those prehistoric window coverings!

But, hey, other than *THAT*, it’s been a great week!

Here are the dark blue blocks I sewed this week for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Twelve string blocks of dark blue with black and white.

Twelve waffle blocks that I made into three 10.5” blocks.

And two quilts that I finished up before the disaster, but didn’t photograph until afterwards. So please excuse the makeshift arrangements. I’ve had to move a lot of stuff around to clear the area by the window. The pain of upheaval is real!

The Space quilt I’d so looked forward to playing with turned into a big MEH. Why cut up a perfectly good panel when it’s fine as is? And I saw other ones online (this is an older panel) where it was left intact, so I thought, why not?  I added the red and blue space fabric, which it turns out was from that same exact line of fabric. The back is just more of the blue.

But I did enjoy putting together this blue string quilt - Stringing the Blues. It finished at 42x48”.

Into the pile of quilts for Quilts for Kids it goes. Our next workshop will be in mid-August, so I’ll continue collecting and sewing more little quilts until then.

Have a great week, friends. We are about 8 days away from leaving on our trip to Missouri Star Quilt Company for a retreat. We (meaning Cousin Kim and the 2 others; not Bruce) plan to be very careful, masking up, social distancing, etc etc. The Delta variant is raging in Missouri (and here too) because - I’m just going to say it - some people are too ignorant to get vaccinated. One of my sons is one of them (although he just says he’s too busy). Not too busy to die, though. I don’t wish it on anyone, but geez..... *End of Rant* and *End of Post* xo