So. For the past four or so years, Tennessee has been hit with massive flooding, rain storms, hail, and torandoes. This happens pretty much every spring, and every spring, when the weather finally starts warming up, hearing that thunderstorm is coming also means we need to get our cars covered and keep one eye out for funnel clouds.

Three years ago, we had to replace our roof & guttering due to hail damage. Last year, our neighbor’s trampoline flew into our yard during a storm and dented the brand new gutter. Since that was all the damage, and his insurance wouldn’t cover the cost of replacing it because he had his trampoline weighed down based on their guidelines, we decided not to get it fixed. The neighbor was happy to pay for it himself, but we decided not to bother. Good thing.

Thursday, we got hit. The National Weather Service says it was a thunderstorm with winds reaching up to 100 mph, but people around here swear there was a tornado. Whatever the case, at 8:30 pm the storm REALLY hit hard and while I decided to see if we had hail, the neighbor’s trampoline took a flying leap and hit the house and then rolled alongside our house to get stuck on our porch.

The damage: the gutter we should have but DIDN’T replace last year? A new dent! But this year, we have three panels of siding broken, one broken so badly it shows the wood beneath. My husband suited up that night in a rain jacket, got the neighbor, and removed the trampoline from our property and investigated and talked about the damage. Neighbor is a nice guy, but not the brightest: he doesn’t think his insurance will cover anything because the trampoline was weighted down (he should’ve been using stakes though, not sandbags, and also: when you hear a big storm is coming and you KNOW your trampoline likes to attack the neighbors? You should take it down before the storm. Or at least turn it upside down). My husband stressed, however, that we’re getting this fixed this year, so we’re hoping that if his insurance says no, he’s going to pay. We’ll find out soon, once we get our own estimate, which likely won’t be more than our own deductible, and we’re not going to claim it on our insurance regardless, just because we shouldn’t have to and also, a lot of insurance companies in this area have a “three strikes in five years, you’re out” rule. Which means I don’t want to add a second strike when I shouldn’t have to.

But the damage could’ve been so much worse: the trampoline didn’t hit the window, so that’s a relief. And we don’t have trees, otherwise the would’ve been bent over, broken, or completely uprooted, which is what I saw Friday morning while driving to work.

Tornado or not, it was bad. I’m really tired of these storm systems, but every geographic location has some kind of SOMETHING that makes the location somewhat undesirable. Like getting lots of snow. Or having ungodly heat. Or being subject to hurricanes. Or earthquakes. There’s always something. It’s just that in this neck of the woods, that SOMETHING used to be rare. It sure as hell didn’t happen like clockwork every year.

Stupid climate change….