Hurricane season - 2021

The roofing company is supposed to call in the morning to let us know if they will start on the roof or not. I doubt that is going to happen with the way the forecast looks. Probably a washout for the entire week.

Heck, feels like I hurt myself too on Sunday. Using an axe to cut a stump near the house into chunks and I think I pulled some muscles in my abdomen doing that. Started hurting like hell earlier today. Keeping the bottle of Aleve handy for a while. Didn't hurt a bit while I was doing it. Maybe the older I get the longer it takes for the muscles to realize I pushed them WAY too far.

Luckily it seems that my muscles have as bad a memory as my brain does because it feels like they are already forgetting the abuse I put them through. Either that or the Aleve I took is really kicking in.

As for Connie, I found a new use for some of the camera monopods I have laying around here. Made them into something between a cane and a crutch, which she is using to get around on now. Amazing what you can repurpose things into if you put your mind to it.

I am embarrassed to admit that I ordered a walker from Walmart today too.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

The new tropical storm mentioned above is now showing that it is forecast to be making a turn to the northwest when it comes into the Gulf, so I guess people in Texas need to keep a keen eye on it towards the end of next week.

Well, not even a trace of that hurricane in the forecast now. Ventusky seems bound and determined to have a hurricane blow up sooner or later at the western tip of Cuba, though.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

The roofers cancelled out for today and said they will see how tomorrow goes. Chances are they will cancel out then too. I'm thinking that unless they work over the weekend, nothing will get done till next week. No rush on our part, so no big deal either way. Connie hurt herself working outside so will likely be laid up for several days anyway. The rain is a good excuse for her to just take it easy.

The roofers have postponed the new roof until Monday of next week. This week is just going to be a complete washout with the rain forecast for every day. We have been getting over an inch of rain each day for the past few days.

I expect mosquitoes are going to be taking advantage of all this rain. Now that the yellow flies seem to be fading away, this will now be their turn to try to make life unpleasant while outside.

Another potential tropical storm brewing, according to one of the models on Ventusky. Possibly making landfall as a hurricane around Steinhatchee, FL on Wednesday night, 07-07-2021.

But a lot can change, of course. Sure is coming close to me. Figures, having a new roof installed, so I can just see that being ripped off and tossed into the forest as so much scrap metal. There would go $24K right down the toilet.

Hopefully it stays far away from you and the roof. Do you have windstorm insurance?

Originally Posted by Lucille

Hopefully it stays far away from you and the roof. Do you have windstorm insurance?

Not sure when the roof will be finished. They didn't start until 06-29 and although the weather has been pretty good, today, well, not so good. They have just under about 3/4ths done. They said they will be out again tomorrow (Saturday) but the weather forecast doesn't look all that good. And of course this is a holiday weekend, just to put some icing on that cake. Matter of fact, the weather forecast doesn't look all that good all through next week. But just because they will say there is a 40 percent chance of rain, that only means there is a chance of sometime during that 24 hour period of getting at least one drop of rain. Or perhaps buckets full. I have seen it be bone dry at our house, yet about a half mile away I could tell they have very heavy rain. It is all guided by pure luck.

And, of course, no telling where that tropical storm/hurricane will actually wind up. One forecast track is calling for landfall near Apalachicola, which would put us on the east (bad) side of the storm. But other forecasts are calling for it to dissipate over Cuba and then pop back up just east of Jacksonville which would mean nothing for around here. So who knows? I sure to hope they can get the roof done tomorrow at perhaps Tuesday. But that is kind of out of my hands.

No we don't have any home owner's insurance. It got to be ridiculous and an unfunny joke. During a declared hurricane, the deductible was something like 10 percent of the value of the house, if I remember correctly. So unless the house were leveled, the out of pocket expense for any repairs would be outrageous. Which means we would be paying insurance for absolutely no benefit at all. We asked the insurance company (State Farm) if we could just drop the hurricane coverage completely, since it was a joke, and they refused to do so. So we just told them to take a hike and dropped them. But on the bright side, I am pretty sure that the money we saved by NOT making home owner's insurance premium payments for the past ?? years would cover most repairs we would need to pay out of pocket for. And if the house gets leveled and everything destroyed? Well, time to sell the land and whatever could be salvaged from the wreckage, buy a motor home, and become rootless gypsies.

But sure would be a kick to the groin to have our brand new roof blown off, though. But that would be Murphy's Law for you.

Looks like it slowed down. Even if Cuba breaks it up it will still spend two days in the Gulf over warm water which will strengthen it. The good news is it looks like it will hit to your east.

https://www.wunderground.com/hurrica...hurricane-elsa

Originally Posted by bcr229

Looks like it slowed down. Even if Cuba breaks it up it will still spend two days in the Gulf over warm water which will strengthen it. The good news is it looks like it will hit to your east.

https://www.wunderground.com/hurrica...hurricane-elsa

The forecast tracks are all over the map, so I'm sure they really don't know what is going to happen with the storm.

The ICON track I am watching on Ventusky.com is showing the center of the storm making landfall around Panama City, FL. Which, if true, will mean the brunt of the wind and rain coming our way.

https://www.ventusky.com/?p=28.88;-8...=20210707/2100

A couple of guys from the roofing company came out early this morning and finished up the last couple of panels at the cupola on the roof, so the roof is now finished. I will be using the drone to do visual inspections over the next few days, weather permitting. But all in all, the roof looks pretty good from what I can see. I took video all the while the roof was being worked on, so I have been keeping a pretty good eye on things.

I saw a label on one of the rolls of metal going into their former, and they used 24 gauge Galvalume Plus, which should mean a pretty good rust resistant and sturdy roof covering. Of course, they did cause the roof over our side porch to leak at one of the seams from their walking on it and using it as a work area. When we had the big live oak tree overhanging that roof removed (it actually was the cause of the damage to the main roof in that area), they hit the edge of that porch roof with their machinery, cutting a gash into the edge and breaking the seal between two panels on that side. They came out and "fixed" it with a sort of peel and stick roofing tape material. This new leak is the next seam over from the first one. I'm guessing the rain we can expect from this storm will shake out any possible leaks anywhere. So I will be going up into the attic while it is raining hard and use a flashlight to look for leaks there. Hopefully I won't find any, as from what I could see, they seemed to do a pretty good job putting down that roof.

Depending on what the roofing company does when they come out for the new repair needed on the porch roof, I think I may have to go up on the porch roof myself and do my own repair. Re-caulk the seams, then cover them with the aluminum peel and stick tape I used to patch up the rusted out areas on the main roof. That seems like some pretty good stuff. But the impending rains have to get out of here first, and the mosquitoes are getting pretty bad, so that could delay things even further.

Connie is still laid up and using a walker, and is going stir crazy being in the house for so long. She injured the abductor muscle in her right thigh and was in a lot of pain and could not walk at all. But I tell her about the mosquitoes, and she is better off staying inside any way.

I have been having to use the screened in side porch as kind of a staging area going in and out of the house, instead of using the front door. That way when I come back in, I can kill off all the mosquitoes in the staging area before opening the doors into the house. “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”

All of the forecast model tracks are now showing Elsa making landfall to the east of us, so we shouldn't get very much, if any, notable weather here.

We did get 0.31" of rain this afternoon, so I went up into the attic to check for any leaks. None were visible, but honestly I can't move around much up there for a thorough inspection. It's a hip roof and I swear the builders put enough 2x4 supports in there to nearly nuke proof the thing. Trying to walk among all those two by four supports would be a real challenge and could result in me losing my balance and putting a foot through the ceiling in the living quarters. Plus it is heavily insulated, which makes the beams I would need to walk on a challenge to see. So I did the best I could from a single vantage point at the attic entranceway with a strong flashlight.

I wanted to take the drone up for an inspection of the roof after completion, but the weather did not cooperate today. I have used the drone every day after the workers left for the day, however, so I have been inspecting all along. Plus I have been using the camcorder during the process every day, and the 600mm lens it has allowed me to do real time inspections. I figured if I spotted something early that was questionable, I could bring it to their attention sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, there was only one of me with the camcorder and there were very often multiple areas of the roof being worked on simultaneously.

Maybe if we get rained in the next few days I can render some videos from the raw footage. Not that this would be of much interest to anyone, though. But one of the owners of the roofing company did stop by here one day and mentioned that he would like to see the videos. Of course, taking video at 4K/60fps creates some pretty large files. All total the video files take up around 415 gb of storage. Wonder how long it would take to email them to him?

Well, two of the three models I am looking at (ICON and GEM) are showing the center of the storm passing right over top of us in Crawfordville Wednesday afternoon. I sure do hope their forecast of it being a fairly weak storm is accurate. Sure would hate to have to go hunting for the pieces of my new roof and putting it back together like some sort of jigsaw puzzle.

I'm hoping too that it will be a small weak storm and not affect the roof. Now that you have it, have you ever considered selling and moving to a more hospitable area with no hurricanes?