When we last left our road trip story, I had alluded to a bright flash on the horizon, which everyone assumed meant the DeLorean DMC-12 had managed to screw itself up to 88mph and blast Back to the Future. Given the DeLorean’s somewhat slug-like “performance,” this is rather implausible, and you should have known better! After all, there was no Mr. Fusion mounted on the car I photographed, right?
No, indeed. In fact, I’ve been giving you clues all along as to where this story was heading.
My plan was to spend a week with Dad just to hang out together and maybe do some landscaping work around his house, cleaning up from where my younger brother had removed some pine trees a few weeks earlier. That’s Dad, by the way, on the Sears Craftsman SS-12 garden tractor that was bought new in the late 1960s. I cut many a lawn on that tractor back in the day.
As I was still “on the clock,” I worked from my laptop during the day and was keeping an eye on the developing story about the massive tornado that hit Oklahoma City that same afternoon. After supper, Dad and I popped in Run Silent, Run Deep (he’s a former submariner), and after the movie settled in to watch more of the tornado coverage on CNN.
Things suddenly got very surreal when I got the above text from my wife at 9:51pm. She called back about a half hour later to tell me they and the livestock and house were all okay, but that the back half of my machine shed was *gone*. After talking a bit more, I filed an initial claim with our insurance company and packed up to head back home early the next morning.
Sixteen very long hours later, I pulled in the driveway to be greeted by this view. Doesn’t look so bad, does it?
Well, here’s the view from the other side.
And one from above. As you can tell, I had my tractors and several vehicles in the barn at the time, none of which escaped damage from the falling debris.
My truck took a truss right in the back window, and the driving rain of course soaked the interior…
The ’63 Beetle and ’50 International L-170 both took some roof dent damage from falling trusses—they should be repairable by a capable panel beater, though.
The 1950 Ford 8N acquired a few new dents, too.
My 1916 Nieuport 11 replica project (which hasn’t been touched in years) was nearly swept away.
Attesting to the power of the wind that hit us (estimated between 80-120mph), this hay rack was pushed up and over the back of Tyler’s 1984 Mustang L. The metal frame and boards laying on the rack used to be bolted vertically to the back of the rack, and the wind sheared the bolts right off.
More heartbreakingly, the boys old Radio Flyer wagon took one for the team.
So that’s how my road trip story ends. We’re thankful that none of the family were hurt, and that there was no *major* damage to vehicles that can’t be undone. Not at all like what some folks experienced in OK City or other locales hit with major natural disasters lately where they lost *everything*.
Now it’s your turn. Let’s hear about your Curbside Catastrophe in the comments!
The same storm system that got your shed hit in Hannibal, MO; this was nine days before I closed on getting the place sold.
There was a tornado involved. That morning, we tried calling the neighbors and there was no phone service. The local paper was showing the worst of the worst of pictures online, of course. So I load the pickup for the 107.2 mile voyage up there.
The house to the south had part of the roof taken off; the house to the north had all its trees blown over; the house across the street had the gutters pulled off with trees down over all fences; the trees to the east of my house were all broken off. My house? Unscathed. I was very lucky. The only issue I had was a large limb from a maple tree out front had partially broken off. Hooked onto it with a chain and pulled it off with the pickup.
Again, I was very lucky. Doubly lucky as I had just moved the ’63 Galaxie seventy miles south for storage and engine work. Plus lucky that there was no damage to the house and it was SOLD on May 30.
Didn’t you say you needed to clean up your machine shed? 😉
Wow; that was a strong gust indeed. Hope the insurance company treats you well.
Our house in Los Gatos was heavily damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, whose epicenter was just a few miles away. Fortunately, we were in LA for two days; chimneys broke off and fell back into the house, all the furniture was on the floor, plaster fell from the walls, etc.. Our kids could have been hurt by the falling furniture and book shelves (my bad for not securing them all). Quite the royal mess.
Fortunately, I was able to get retro-active earthquake insurance, which helped the massive rebuild that ensued. How come? Because in CA, the insurance agent is requited to offer you earthquake insurance, and you have to sign the form refusing it. My agent never sent it to me, and just signed it himself. I found out that was a fairly common occurrence in the industry, so they had to sell me coverage back from when I bought the house two years earlier. I was lucky I stumbled into that tip-off, in the pre-internet years.
I indeed had been planning to clean out the back of the barn – just not this way! (c:
I had a sizable scrap iron pile against the back wall, which netted me over $500, so it wasn’t all bad…. What was fun was pulling two hay racks in tandem 40 miles to the scrapyard. They pulled pretty good going up due to all the weight, but coming back was a different story – they would start whipsawing over about 35 mph.
Ouch, thankfully it was the barn and not your house with your family in it.
As can be expected, anyone living in the Southeast, Caribbean, and Gulf regions knows about hurricanes. I was too young to have direct recollection of the events, but in 1956 the Santa Clara hurricane known as Betsy by NOAA hit Puerto Rico directly. It never hit the continental US so it is not well known, but destroyed over 15,000 homes on the island including ours. When they say “run for the hills” people did and thankfully prevented many deaths. According to my mother, we lived in a quonset hut for about 6 months until my grandfather was able to secure a properly built commercial structure. Prior we lived in a wooden hand built home with 4 rooms that was destroyed by the storm.
Yikes! Lucky all there are well. Looks like the back light on the Ford got knocked loose (so funny to see one of them with good tread on the rear). But, you are covered for losses and your stand of hay is looking good-funny how some plants can really roll with it, others take a big hit-some sort of lesson there. That last picture makes me homesick, that’s a midwestern sky.
We were lucky on our farm, 35 years without a major hit. My ex-wife had a different story, however. Driving down the street in Stillwater, OK, in the ’64 Galaxie convertible her Dad got her for her first car, she and her roommate spotted a tornado coming right up the street. They got down on the floor under the dash-fortunately, you could do this in a ’64 Galaxie convertible-as the tornado took the roof off the church they were next to, picked them up, set them down in the church, and then put the roof of the church down on top of them and the Galaxie. Car was totalled, unfortunately-it was red with a white interior, beautiful car from the pictures-but they were ok. Ever since, whenever there are storm warnings, she takes to the basement with a bottle of good Scotch. Can’t say that I blame her.
Wow!….Pick ups, sheds ,and old tractors, are so easily fixed or replaced. Humans bodys?…Not so much. It sucks man,however it could of been a lot worse.
My wife and I watch the news everyday. Bush fire’s destroying peoples homes, floods, Tornado’s etc. The devestation in Alberta, is unbelievable. My heart goes out to all the victims.
I just shake my head whenever I hear somebody whine about our cold, wet spring. We have been so.lucky here in Ontario. A soggy lawn,and a convertible that hasn’t been out much? Doesn’t quite compare, to the damage a lot of other folks have seen
Good luck with the insurance people Ed…Oh, they will hem, and haw, and give you a little run around. Your legit dude ..You will get your check..
Fingers crossed…never happened to me.
Which is odd, because I’ve had more slow-speed crashes than any ten other owners…the last three, I wasn’t even in the vehicle. I tend to park as far away as possible…and STILL…somehow…some clown can tag the rear bumper hard enough to bend it back and under. Or put a pole or ladder through a back window.
Yeah…and deer. Hit three of them. Grazed one at 55, on a winding New York backroad in the Adirondacks. Amazingly, in a VW Fox, only cracked the grille and jammed the hood latch. Later…hit one at 25…I’d slowed down but the bugger started racing me, turned to look and got decapitated by my right fender. Which also got peeled.
Last one…was on my commuter bike, a Chinese scooter. Now THERE is a tragedy; because parts are NOT available. At 60, the deer didn’t dump me; don’t know how I was so fortunate. But the plastic fairing got peeled off the right side; and now it’s all but useless.
But those deer-encounters I tend to group into “Acts of Nature” – rightly or wrongly.
Ed, I’m sorry to hear of this damage; thankfully no one was hurt. My best wishes in that you get everything back in order in a rapid manner.
I live in New Jersey, so no great horror stories to tell. We may get an occasional tornado sighting or touch down, but these come from isolated severe thunderstorms. Nothing like the monster sized tornado’s that spawn in the midwest. Luckily for us, the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains, the Eastern Continental Divide, stop those monster storms from marching further east.
However, we are in the path of coastal Nor’Easters and Hurricanes. Both can be devastating to the coastal towns, but nowadays with their size and strength increasing, we feel their affects here, 60 miles from the coast.
An awful lot of prayers and kind thoughts have been sent to the good folks in the midwest and southern states these days, though…..
Damn! Glad your family and animals are all right.
Gad, that was close! So happy that your home and family escaped unscathed.
As for the property – didn’t you say you had been wanting to be rid of that 95 Ford pickup? An insurance claim is not a bad way to unload an unwanted vehicle. 🙂 I hope the others were not damaged too badly. I have no doubt that someone else’s Curbside Classic is getting towed to the boneyard after being smashed. This serves as a reminder that the attrition rate for old cars slows but never stops due to storms, garage fires, and so forth.
I have been fortunate to live my entire life in the midwest and never be directly affected by a tornado. My closest call was as a little kid Palm Sunday of 1965. We had been at a family gathering in Celina, Ohio and started driving back to Fort Wayne that night. We drove through two small towns (Wilshire and Rockford, Ohio) about 15 minutes ahead of some really bad tornadoes that wiped out much of those towns. It was the most tense drive I remember as a kid, sitting in the back seat of our 64 Cutlass with my mother and sister, while my Dad drove and Mom’s aunt sat in front. I was behind Dad so could not see the speedometer, which I am sure was reading pretty high.
Wow: I hate to see the damage but thankfully it wasn’t much worse. Those pictures are kind of strange in that I don’t see a lot of small chunks/garbage/etc. It must have been well organized…if it hit my shop everyone in our zip code would be picking up my mess!
All the small stuff was inside the workshop in the front part of the shed (we figure it was this additional structure that kept the front part from coming apart, too). I also have a 14‘ table in the front part that’s covered with all the removed parts for my two VW rebuilds. Had that stuff been swept out, both those projects would have been “done.”
Wow… very glad to hear everyone is OK and the vehicular damage was light, considering how bad it could’ve been. I’ve never seen one up close, but tornadoes scare the crap out of me! The closest I’ve ever come was Hurricane Sandy last year (and many hurricanes/nor’easters before that) – but I know that’s a much different kinda storm.
I’ve also gotta chuckle at this building being labeled a “machine shed”… a “shed” ?! That’s a little aluminum thing to keep lawnmowers in! That structure is way bigger than my HOUSE!
Well of course that is what living in small town in the Midwest is like, it has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Ed has a professional job, so he circulates among the living, but I know for those that live in rural areas with local jobs, it can be socially isolating. I know (I think) you live in the greater NYC metro area, where anything with grass on any of the islands is going to cost a small fortune (and impossible in Manhattan), my brother lives in the Upper West side of NYC has been there for years and is quite content in his 800 sq ft apartment. Of course my garage is bigger than his apartment, but lonely he is not in NYC, but hasn’t driven a car in 25 years…
I was in Kansas in May, real Kansas like 2+ hours from KC deep beyond the interstate where the land is as flat A’s a clean sheet of paper. For me not liking storms and knowing about tornadoes, the slightest breeze elicited fear from me even on a mostly sunny day. Even though Kansas is domestic car heaven, I drove for 2+ hours and could count the foreign makes I passed on my hands, I am not sure that place is for me. McPherson, KS is really in the center of no where…
Oh dear, much of the time in the Midwest you would be a little shaky, then-the wind blows all the time there; the only time it stops is right before a bad storm hits. The first two years I lived in Tallahassee, which has trees everywhere, I would step outside every morning and scan the skies out of concern, as the air was so calm. Maybe part of the reason Flatlanders like their big cars is because they don’t get blown around by the constant winds so much.
Once again, glad you and all your people are well, Ed, and that at most you have some dented iron and forms to complete. As you know, it doesn’t always work out that well.