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| Fri, Nov. 20 - - Mobile - RSS | |
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Better to be ready than regretful
Watching Spotsylvania engineer go the extra mile to protect his house from a storm, columnist rethinks his strategy of doing little
Date published: 9/21/2003 By ROB HEDELT WADE STALLINGS says it's the engineer in him that wouldn't let him just sit idly by as a Class 2 hurricane swept into town last week. That's why the Spotsylvania County man left his job as an electrical engineer at Dahlgren early on Wednesday to put in a full afternoon of storm-proofing on his family's house in Spotswood Estates. First came the purchase of eight sheets of plywood, three rolls of plastic sheeting, 10 two-by-fours, several rolls of duct tape and enough food to last the family for days. Next, he hurried home and applied duct tape to the cracks at the edge of his storm windows, hoping to keep any rain driven by the storm out of the house that's been the family's home for 12 years. Then came the harder part, standing atop a ladder while he single-handedly juggled a drill, a driver and the sheets of plywood used to protect each and every one of the more than dozen or so windows and sliding-glass doors in the house. He started the storm-proofing about 3, and the sun was starting to set as he dragged the ladder and his tools into the house with arms aching from the effort. "In my job at Dahlgren, we do a lot of testing and support, which includes a great deal of planning," Stallings said during a break in his preparations Thursday. "The notion is always that you hope for the best, but plan for the worst." He noted that while his own kids think boarding up the windows was a lot of trouble for nothing, that doesn't bother him. "If this work turns out to be unnecessary, that's perfectly fine with me," he said. "But if it is the kind of storm that could break windows and cause all kinds of water damage, it will have been worth it." As someone who'd done little but move a few small items off the back deck and fill up a few coolers in my own home, I found myself a little worried by Stallings' hard work.
Date published: 9/21/2003
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