Southern Alberta, including Calgary, experienced extremely strong wind gusts today. We’ve lived in our home for 20 years and put a new roof on about 8 years ago. We’ve been through many wind storms. But today’s extreme winds damaged building sites and downtown shopping centres, toppled trees, tipped tractor-trailers and blew a large section of shingles off our roof.
Fortunately, our roofer came over about 2 o’clock to check things out. He braved the howling gusts long enough to put some new screws into our chimney cap, otherwise it’s quite possible the whole thing would have come down. As it is, as soon as possible we’ll be sending a crew up into the attic to reinforce the tie-in between the chimney and the structure of the house. And our roofer will be back tomorrow to at least make things water tight again. A few rain showers and snow flurries are forecast for tonight, so we’re hoping that water damage will be minimal, if any.
In the meantime, here are a few of the photos we took this afternoon…
Quick update – Success getting a temporary cover for the exposed section of roofing. Tar paper will keep the weather out for now, but we’ll need a longer-term fix ASAP. Framers went up into the attic and securely connected the chimney to the structure of the house, so it shouldn’t blow away in the next windstorm. Replacement light fixture has been ordered. The big news is that our roof shingles are no longer manufactured, so we’ll have to deal with the insurance company over getting a new roof.