I ended up going into the hallway to call her back and find out what was going on.

I learned that we had a massive storm blow through during the during the hour or so we’d been away from home. The storm packed with 60 mile an hour wind gusts. As a result, a massive section of the tree in front of our house had been ripped off and fallen onto our house.

I wasn’t sure how bad it was but it sounded bad.

I had no choice but to gather everyone up, leave the movie and head home to assess the damage. The boys were not happy but once I explained what was going on, they wanted home but were terrified.

The section of tree that fell is massive. It did considerable damage but it could have been so much worse. If it had directly impacted the house, the tree would have literally been in the boys bedroom and possibly our living room as well.

As it stands, the tree sorta grazed the side of our house, ripping down the gutters, ripping a steel TV tower in half, damaging the roof line in at least two areas, damaging the garage roof and possibly part of the balcony off our bedroom. I have to double check in the morning..

It took out part of our fence but seems to have spared our central AC unit. We are incredibly, incredibly lucky.

If we’d been here when this happened the boys would be an absolute mess. The neighbors said it was unbelievably loud. It would have shook the house and sounded like it was coming through the walls or the roof. The boys would have been beside themselves.

Anyway, I had called my Dad from the theater and he rushed over, getting there before us. He did a quick sweep of the inside of the house to make sure there wasn’t any water damage and thankfully, as of now, there is no obvious signs of damage. Although the areas that would be damaged are not easily accessible. We’d have to venture into the crawl space on the third floor.

This is a massive problem and I’m not sure what we’re going to do.

I spoke with State Farm and started the claim process but I was informed that they had no eta as to when I would hear back from a claims adjuster because with all the hurricane damage on the east coast, there was a long line.

Unfortunately, I can’t rally do anything until the adjuster comes out and documents the damage.

I speak with my agent on Monday and follow up.