Lufkin cleanup begins!

Yesterday, I drove to Lufkin to survey the damage to mom's house, inside and out. I wasn't sure what to expect. What we found wasn't good, but it could have been much worse. The tree that fell on the front of the house just wrecked the front awning of the house. No water got into the house and no furniture was damaged.

The back tree is another story. A long piece of thick branch poked a hole in the roof and fell into the house. It was over my mom's den/breakfast room. The tree people had taken down most of the tree, but they needed to get inside to take down the part that was hanging from the ceiling. There is quite a hole there. Some water got in, but luckily that was linoleum flooring, so no mold or mildew. Mom did have a carpet laying on top of the linoleum, but it wasn't tacked down and there was no padding. So I just rolled up the wet carpet and threw it out. Oh, and the chimney top was broken.

My mother-in-law went with me and helped, thank God. We cleaned up as much of the mess as we could and hauled it outside. We boxed up all her stuff in that room and moved it out so that when we get a contractor hired for the repairs, they are ready to start working, nothing will be in their way. In the long run, the room should be much nicer - new floors, light fixtures, paint, etc.

Here's what we walked into:










Here's the chimney (part of it is laying on my mom's patio):




Here's about midway through our clean up:








Here are the tree guys getting the rest of the tree out:


And the big hole left behind:


Okay, now the house is protected and ready for repairs: