rainbow house

Relieved to be home again, Jack and Ruyk returned last week; it had been a hot, humid bug ridden trip.
We suspect that a tornado came through our area as other buildings on the same ridge or built as poorly as we, survived ;only losing some roof and windows.
Jack hired 3 natives to help them take away truckloads of debris , they pulled out 6 solar panels from the fallen roof (the 1/2 of the roof with the 20 solar panels came down in one piece where as the other side just flew away!) and he talked to island contractors about what to do next. The front east wall and part of the north wall are gone,; though there are some cracks in concrete the other walls look solid.
My nephew Ned Ruykhaver an architect has offered to help us with reconstruction. I do not want to go through this again. We want a house that can stand up to another hurricane. We have limited funds. Ned thinks that we can rebuild a similar house using what is there;the new construction will have better materials and a stronger construction.
A neighbor, a widow from Germany has a house close to us which suffered minor damage, but does not want to invest in repairing the roof and windows. She has offered us the use of it, if we repair it.
Jack does not want to return to the island until there is electricity. WE are hoping that by early to mid November we will be able to return with our 2 doodles and aging cat; drive to Florida and charter a flight over to the island.