Remnants of Helene

  I watched with some anticipation as the early models showed the remnants of Hurricane Helene (a Cat 4 storm) come into the lower Ohio Valley. I was looking for rain any way we could get it  Our monthly rainfall three days ago was 0.60" and that against a September normal of 3.20". So we were desperate for rain.

 We got it. And wind, too. Yesterday the peak gust at  the Dayton Airport was 57 mph. Last evening  78,000 customers were without power. 

 Our back porch looked like this early in the day as the storm began:

 And that was just a harbinger of things to come. Pretty soon the rain had picked up and the wind was howling. Our power failed before I even got up and remained off from about 5:30 am to 7:45 am. Throughout the day it would falter and return but never completely failed again.

 Our most major damage was to the northmost catalpa. A branch near the road snapped off. Tom moved it out of the road  when he came home. It looked too big for our chain saw and too heavy for us. What to do?

 Another view of the catalpa.

 Tom collected small branches on the picnic table for us to move to the burn barrel as the weather improved.

 Today our neighbor, Jeff Erisman, stopped by with his grandson, Cooper, and cut the catalpa branch into easily movable pieces.

 What beautiful neighbors we have. We can count on them for anything.

 A bit about the rainfall: yesterday I recorded 0.37" at 7 am and this morning I read 2.13". It's very rare to go over two inches in a 24 hour period. September now stands at 3.10", just a tenth of an inch shy of normal.

 And it's raining ...

Update 09-30-24:

 We got another 0.58" yesterday, still due to  Helene, and that brings the final storm total to 4.45".

 Today I had a dental appointment in Miamisburg and afterwards I visited the Kroger on  Heincke and found most of the refrigerated and frozen cases empty. There was no meat, little dairy and no  frozen  goods. Only the milk cases had product. Here's a sample of what I saw:

 I wonder if that's  an insured loss?