What we’re looking at here is the roof of my apartment building. A wolf of a wind attempted to blow my house down—and failed, fortunately—so it had to settle for the roof instead.
The Poughkeepsie Journal says this happened last Sunday night. I can tell you it happened around 10:45 Monday morning, because there is a message from me in Vassar’s Web Development Slack channel around that time that says something along the lines of “holy WTF, I think my roof is gone.” I’d just seen it go by.
I’d been hearing the wind all night, and around ten that morning—just as I was starting to think it was giving up—it picked up significantly: hurling itself against the building at intervals, spitting and howling. I noticed, with some alarm, that the building was starting to shake, and the bits and pieces flying past the window were getting bigger.
I was wondering if I should head for the basement…and I remember a shuddering thud, as though something huge had struck the building. And then a vast black structure tumbled by the window, crumpling onto the ground outside and flattening my neighbor’s fence.
The building is currently evacuated—heat and power shut off, the doors locked and alarmed. Some residents are being put up by the Red Cross, and some of us opted for whatever our renters’ insurance would cover. I’m crashing with my friend Sarah, having spent the past seven days frantically finishing one the more work-intensive Vassar sites I’ve built in a while. It’s been a week.