Galloping Gazebos

Our gazebo used to be on the opposite of the shed, standing upright.

I had just gotten back to sleep this morning, on the couch in my basement, I am guessing at just about 0800 or so, when I was startled out of my dreams by my mother-in-law screaming "Linda Look..." or something like that. Then a second or two later, my wife loudly exclaimed "Oh my God..." and a moment later something about getting me right away because maybe I could do something. At first I thought one of the dogs just peed or crapped on the floor but when I heard my wife I thought maybe something bad had happened to one of our hunde. I had pretty much been out cold trying to catch up on the sleep I lost last night because the dogs woke me a couple or few times to go outside. With the ruckus upstairs, further sleep wasn't about to happen. I jumped out of bed, rushed upstairs and once there my wife told me the gazebo had blown away.

I ventured outside and took a look. Apparently, the winds  had howled and huffed and puffed and blew our friggin backyard gazebo away, either that or a giant (or maybe aliens) had come by, picked it up and moved it. It had blown so darned hard that it blew the gazebo right over the top of our backyard shed. Yet, somehow 
things that weighed less than a pound, maybe 25 feet away from the corner of the yard where the gazebo had stood, did not even budge as far as I could tell. A plastic table, only a few feet from the gazebo was knocked over but otherwise unmoved. Of the furniture under and within the gazebo, a small sofa was upturned but the other chairs still all where upright when I went outside to survey the damage. While I have not counted the cushions that had been on the sofa and chairs, at first glance it looked as if they were all there. They weigh a whole lot less than the gazebo but the gazebo is what went waltzing. I don't understand exactly how it happens but the wind is fickle and things like that do happen. I have seen wind damage where the winds had been strong enough to knock houses off of there foundations, destroy other houses completely, but a house next door to those destroyed was standing with almost no evident damage (saw that down in FL after hurricane Andrew 
many years go).

The gazebo got impaled on a tree that my son and his friend just trimmed 
about a week ago. Made it a little difficult to get it free but we managed
to push it up, over and free of those two stubs and moved it over the fence.

Right after that cursory initial look, I went inside to get Brendan to give me a hand and he spoke some words of wisdom when he told me: "I'm eating breakfast first". I sat down and joined him, Linda and Oma for breakfast before doing another thing. After that, I went outside and assessed the damage a  bit more and figured out what needed to be done.

As for the damage to the gazebo, it was totaled. There was also damage to some other things. Our garden fence also had three post caps cracked, evidently as the gazebo galloped in the wind. I am pretty sure the gate latch was also bent and there may be some other damage to the fence itself. I am ever so happy that the thing did not do much more damage to the fence, we just had it installed last year. A couple of ornamental flower pots were destroyed, a small tree damaged, and our shed may have been damaged too (waiting for the winds to die off before I get up on a ladder to check the roof). There also may be other damage to things as yet unseen.

I took a lot of photos to document it, then Brendan and I moved it off of the shed and off the tree on which it was impaled. Then up  and over and away from the garden fence it went so I could work on it without fear of it doing more damage. I hauled out some few 
tools and disassembled the darned thing. I did not need it blowing into someone else's yard and hurting them or dancing around more in our yard and hurting us or breaking more of our stuff. I was too busy with all that to look around much more for additional damage. Somewhere in there, Brendan brought me out my second cup of coffee for the day, that was a nice and made me happy. I must say, I also was quite happy with myself for having thought to use a power drill to take out the screws instead of doing it by hand with a screwdriver because they was a damned lot of them and it would maybe have tripled the time for me to take it apart.

I kind of always thought it would blow away sooner or later. Even though we had it anchored on all four corner posts and had the nylon side panels furled, the wind was able to lift it like that. I guess the wind going under the top plastic panels created enough lift. As you can see in the top photo, one of the side panels got unfurled by the winds and another was ripped off entirely (it is up against the white fence, bottom center of the top shot). The other two remained furled. In the bottom photo you can see it impaled on the tree and also see that a lot of the roof panels got knocked out. If you enlarge the bottom pic and look close, you can see some of the metal was cracked and twisted.

I have placed an insurance claim and want to see what they offer, We paid almost $2,000.00 for it less than two years ago. We have replacement value on our homeowner's policy and a $500 deductible but I just saw there is also what they call a wind damage deductible of $500. I am not sure if that is in addition to the regular deductible or not; I am hoping the total deductible will be only $500. Anyway, I guess we might get at least a few hundred toward a new one, maybe even about 3/4 of what a new one would cost if there is only one $500 deductible.
 
Yeah, that means my wife is already talking about getting a new one! She said I should shop for it and maybe we will wind up with a better one that she had selected. I thought it was a decent one, hell at least it was made in North America, up in Canada, and that beats China. I would rather not get a new one at all and have this happen again but I suppose it was a nice amenity to have in the backyard. It certainly was a great place to sit outside, on a summers evening into the night or wee hours, while sipping several a couple of beers or cocktails; heck, I even did that out there on a few rainy and snowy days but when it snowed it was a glass of whiskey I was putting to my lips.

All the best,
Glenn B