Ahhh.... Life's little lessons....

I was one of many people that experienced storm damage from last weekends weather event across the Des Moines metro area.  First of all, let me state that I own my home and have a good insurance company on my side.  I had literally changed home owners insurance just the previous month and had gone through the painful process of getting insurance quotes from various companies.  Little did I know that I would be testing out the claims process so quickly.  My only previous home owner insurance claim was from almost 10 years ago after moving into our home when I was out mowing the back lawn.  My lawn mower kicked a piece of lava rock that escaped the landscaping area and ended up embedded in my neighbors vinyl siding.  That was a great "Hi there, new neighbor... ".

Back to this latest storm.  Like many, we were awoken by what sounded like the proverbial freight train.... a double hung storm window in our bedroom blew out of the frame (glass intact) from the high winds... fortunately it was stopped by the venetian blinds and I was able to simply pop it back into the frame.  But that was enough to wake me up and begin to realize that we were in the midst of a great storm. 

As dark as it was, I could tell that we had lost several large limbs from our backyard trees and a 30lb potted plant on the deck was on its side.  As I continued to look through the glass patio doors (something that I thought later was very stupid of me to do) I could see that my gazebo was twisted and broken into pieces.  This gazebo is one of those canvas topped "tent like" structures that you now see everywhere in all the home improvement stores.  We've had ours for several years and I remember paying quite a bit of money for it when we first bought it.  It has (had) stood the test of time during every other storm that blew through our back yard, but this one did the old "big top" in.

Shortly after 3:00am my house lost its power.. now I know those of you reading this from other parts of the country (coastlines/hurricane-ville) losing power is something that happens more frequently to you than it does to us here in the midwest... Generators are not a big ticket item here and I would bet that most generators are purchased here for Farmers Market vendors and not home owners waiting for power to go out!

As daylight arrived I was able to assess the full damage to my property.  A wooden fence along the back of my property had taken a couple of direct hits from large limbs and as a result, all the posts have snapped off at the ground.  The good news is that the fence itself appears to be in good condition and only the posts will need to be replaced.

Most of the limbs have fallen to the ground, however there is one large limb still  hanging from above waiting for assistance to come all the way down.  Assistance meaning the sound of a chainsaw and professional tree service.... I have a "loaded" walnut tree at the other end of my lot with at least two large branches stuck above... they appear to be from a neighbors tree and were blown into my tree... but because they are at least 30 feet in the air, again, the tree service will need to remove them.

It appears after having my insurance adjuster out that I will have a claim for damages against my new policy.  I kiddingly said that I was probably their newest policy owner with a claim.... the adjuster said to me... "well, hopefully you'll someday be our oldest policy owner without a claim"...

I agree with that statement!  So... To finish this blog post and give some truth to advertising of the title... here are a couple of things that I have learned from this experience.

1.  Make sure you have your home owner insurance policy handy and know what is or isn't covered.  (The reason I recently switched policies is because my premium had gone up A TON and my coverage had changed)

2.  Keep a list of service providers applicable to your needs (tree trimmers if you have lots of trees on your lot for example) so that you don't have scramble if you need service or worse emergency service.

3.  Be prepared for storm outages by having flashlights & batteries handy at a moments notice.  IF you are in an area where you frequently lose power, consider buying a generator and know how to use it. 

4.  If you lose electricity, try not to open your refrigerator or freezer unless absolutely necessary... discard any food that comes to room temperature from your freezer to avoid food poisoning. 

5.  Lastly, have a backup plan if your home does sustain damage or a loss of power requiring you to leave for an extended period of time.  Don't forget to include your pets in this plan of action!  They can suffer from heat stroke more quickly than people because they rely on keeping the inside temperatures cooler plus the fact that they don't have the option of taking off their coat to cool down!