Last week, lightning hit the large pine tree in our backyard, and it landed on top of the house.
- It was early evening and we weren’t in bed.
The tree broke the wall of the bedroom, and had we been in there, we would have been injured, or worse. It was raining hard, coming through the broken roof, and pouring into the house. I called the homeowner’s insurance company, who sent an insurance adjuster out within an hour. They assessed the situation and had someone there soon after to put tarps over the roof. There was nothing anyone could do until the rain stopped. He asked if we knew the air conditioning unit was also broken. There were tree limbs impaling the AC unit, and he was sure it was going to need replacing. Once he assessed the damage, he told me it was probably going to be a total loss. With all the water damage, and possible damage to the foundation, it could take several months to rebuild. He gave us enough money to stay in a hotel for a week until he could find us an apartment while the house was being rebuilt. It was just our luck to get a hotel room that had a wet floor from a leaking HVAC unit, and there was no air conditioning. I was happy when the insurance agent called the next day and told us we had an apartment. We could get our personal belongings out of the house while he secured the apartment. He assured us it had perfect HVAC and all the necessities.