A Ladder Jack

I was a full-time news reporter in September 1999 when Hurricane Floyd paid a visit to New Jersey. As such, I was expected to be ready to hop in my vehicle, during the most deadly phase of the  wind and rain, to capture the story for our readers.

The fact that Hurricane Floyd turned out to be little beyond a lot of rain out here in West Jersey might be the reason I don’t remember it. However, I DO remember making an unauthorized Floyd-related departure from the news bureau right before the storm arrived. I left, without securing the bureau chief’s approval, because I was worried about my ladders.

In 1999, my home renovation attention was focused on the house’s expansive northeast wall. I’d erected a RubeGoldberg combination of extension ladders, planks suspended by ropes, ladder jacks and pump jacks. I used the ropes to lift the planks off the ladder jacks so that I could raise or lower the jacks.

It's a long hike to that northeast roofline apex

It was quite an operation, one that included the use of a super-long extension ladder (possibly a 40-footer) that enabled me to strip and paint the tippy-top peak of the house.

As I sat in the bureau, listening to warnings of hurricane force wind approaching the area, I grew increasingly nervous. The northeast side of the house happens to be the side that includes the main electrical service. I cringed at the thought of strong winds whipping around the house, grabbing my ladders and flinging them into the power line.

I also cringed at the thought of toppling planks and jacks smashing the windows or flying into the neighbor’s nearby house.

So as the sky darkened, I raced home in my Ford Aerostar. For all the newspaper knew, I was at the local supermarkets interviewing panic-stricken housewives as they stocked-up on milk (because we all know dairy cows stop providing milk during a hurricane). Instead of taking notes at ShopRite, I was outside my house, running up and down ladders,  tying them down with any and all pieces of rope I could find.

It got windy, but not one ladder moved that day.

However, there came an evening – about six years later – when I left a ladder standing on the ( by then fully painted) northeast wall and never tied it down. As day turned to night, a summer  thunderstorm ripped through town. The unsecured ladder didn’t stand a chance. Neither did the storm window it smashed. Neither did the big, thick metal lightning rod it took out. And I wasn’t thrilled about the scrape marks left in siding as the ladder made its destruction-filled descent.

I’m grateful the toppling ladder didn’t strike the electrical line. That would have been cute. Maybe it just proves that, when bad things happen in life,  it’s often because somebody didn’t tie down their ladder. So to speak.