Saturday, March 15, 2008

Real March Madness

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CNN Center is four blocks away from us. So is the Georgia Dome. If you watched the news last night, you probably saw lots of pictures around this area. Concrete and insulation in the street. Old brick buildings collapsing. Water flowing down staircases. By the grace of God, our building is untouched. Totally. Our deck furniture on the roof of our three-story building didn't even move. We were out to dinner at the time, and didn't even know anything was happening until we went back to our friends' house and turned on the TV. At first, I was just worried about the leak in our roof, but as we drove home, I started hearing reports of windows of downtown hotels being blown out. Just for reference, here's what the front of our place looks like again:
ourSide
I was freaked out. It didn't help that when we got off at our exit, Atlanta's finest (sic) wouldn't let us turn towards our street. We did get home after a brief detour, and, miraculously--and I mean that in every sense of the word--nothing was wrong. The plastic bag I crammed in the hole in the roof even kept it from leaking!!! You've seen the news coverage, I'm sure, so I won't elaborate (except to say, BBC viewers, that Atlanta is NOT in Mississippi, but in Georgia--did hosting the Olympics do nothing for us?) But I will say it was freaky to go up on our deck this morning and survey the damage:

This is where the basketball tournament was going on (and also where the water was cascading down the stairs, if you saw that particular reel):

I kind of wanted to title this post, "God Smites the SEC", but I thought that might border on blasphemous. Not the thing when you're so thankful God saved your own place.

JiffNotes
Now if I can just keep Michael from leaning out the window with his plastic popcorn bucket, trying to catch hail....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear you are okay - I just sent you an e-mail before checking your blog. Great pictures!

TeresaB said...

At least you knew something had happened last night. I didn't have a clue about anything until Sat. afternoon when I called Jean and the 1st thing out of her was "All the chickens are ok." Believe me, I was freaked that I didn't know. (This is what comes from spending too much time trying to knit a sock.) Glad you guys were spared any damage or harm!

Erin said...

thanks for the update! so glad you and your lovely home are safe. so glad also that you could post some cool eyewitness photos.

Sue in N. Va said...

I am so lad that you two are ok and that your home is safe, too! *hugs*

Jean in Georgia said...

Yeah, Teresa now knows to look at the news occasionally, even when she's in the middle of knitting. :)

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