Hurricane Update

We left Canada on Friday morning and drove 11 hours to Carlisle, PA the first day.  We were very anxious to get to Dataw to see for ourselves what the damage was.  We drove 12 hours on Saturday and arrived, in the dark, at 7:30pm.  Despite the dark, we could see quite a bit of the damage.  It took our breath away.  The piles of debris and wood chips are just overwhelming.  The best description I can give for those who live in the north, is that this is what it looks like after a blizzard with the piles of snow being substituted for the piles of debris.  We almost missed the turn for our street because we couldn’t see where the turn was due to the piles of branches and trees that are in the median and along the sides of the road.  Nothing prepared us for this.

This week’s blog could well be just photographs.  There are no words to describe the devastation that we have found on Dataw upon our return.  No loss of life and everything that is damaged can be repaired or replaced but it is a monumental task and one that is going to take weeks, if not, months.  Our house was damaged.  There was glass everywhere from the shattered sky light on the porch, even inside the main part of the house.  It most definitely could have been worse, much worse.  Somehow, the tree that came down was caught by another tree and thus only did minimal damage to our roof and window.  If not caught, well, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this right now.  I toured a tiny portion of the island today.  I tried to walk and I had to stop.  Too many people to talk to and too much to take in.  Everyone is helping.  Neighbors are helping each other and offers are coming from all over the place.  We were lucky.  So many here were not and have thousands of dollars worth of damage and they won’t be able to live in their homes for months.  One neighbor, across the street, has six (6) trees that fell on her house in almost the exact same spot.  She cannot live in her house and has left.  There is one street here, Chicora Point, that is the worst hit area of all.  I walked down that street today and still can’t believe what I saw.  I used to feel sorry for the folks there because it was so dark because of all the big trees that surrounded their homes despite having a lovely view of the marsh.  Well, not the case anymore.  There is bright sunlight coming in everywhere.  One person I talked to had eight trees fall down and water damage in their home but they were cheerful because now they have an opportunity to have a garden.  Always look on the bright side.  Our view has improved too but I can’t see it yet for the piles of tree branches that are just off our patio.  John spent hours today with a handsaw cutting off branches of the tree so we could at least get out our door.  Our neighbors cleared our driveway for us so we could get into the house yesterday.  I am overwhelmed.  These pictures are before we started to clean up.

Working our tails off

We worked very hard all day and the results are amazing.  We started cleaning up the sunporch from the broken glass that was shattered all over the porch.  It was depressing to say the least but at least we started.  We will be picking glass out of chairs and off the floor for some time.  Teeny, tiny pieces that insinuated themselves everywhere.  Once we had done that we decided to move outside.  I have ordered a small chainsaw but it won’t be here until Tuesday or Wednesday so John had to use a handsaw to cut off branches and clear a path to our porch door.  The before picture above shows what it looked like before he got to it.  The next picture is once it has been cleared.  He did an amazing job and was determined to do it his way.  The view through the porch door is so much better tonight, but, we forgot that when we piled up the branches we put them in a pile in front of the patio and thus blocked our view again.  It will, however, be cleared away at some point but we can get out the door which is what we wanted to accomplish.