That is all.

It's hammer time.....

This ice shit is no fun. My power is out so I’m running a genny at about $1.15/hr worth of gas and to add insult to injury, I’m working from home and my internet and CATV went down too.

I have that beat.

Here we are a couple weeks from when we are supposed to move and this ice storm hits.  Everything was already going wrong when about an hour ago this happened.









We own three vehicles.  Two are 70's era "project" vehicles that are always either broke down or almost broke down.  The definition of unreliable.  

Guess which one just had its roof caved, sunroof smashed and impaled with a giant tree limb?  Yup, our only daily driver. Guess which one had liability insurance?  Same car.  Guess who's about to be homeless in a couple weeks, supposed to be on our way to Georgia at that time and now has no vehicle and no money to buy another (every penny we have has been tied up in the move)?  Yup, these girls.  

Told ya.

Damn girl, you ain’t been livin’ right...

That SUCKS!

Did the windshield survive?

The windshield is intact, I think.  It's hard to tell.  The roof of the car however is smashed.  The sunroof busted and most of the framework that held it was torn from the roof.  It's definitely unrepairable and even if it could be repaired it would cost way more than the car is worth.  We weren't able to get in it tonight but I suspect that big limb probably broke a lot of stuff inside too.  As of now it's tarped but full of limb pieces, broken glass, headliner, ice and crap ton of leaves.

It's definitely a total loss.  

The crapper is we have been living right.  We just donated some stuff to folks in need and have more to donate and POW!  So much for the good guys coming out ahead.  

I don't even know how to handle this.  We might be able to get one of the other two vehicles up and running so my sis can get to work but they never stay reliably running for long.  That Lincoln was our lifeline so to speak.  Kind of sucks that it was a 1 of 2000 Collector Edition as well.  I'm not a collector but if they exist out there they probably all felt a great sadness in the force.  

I can hear more limbs dropping as I type this.  There were just three giant flashes of light and our power went out and came back on so some power lines nearby just got taken out.   I'm afraid to look outside at this point.  We are just completely screwed.

Girl, you need to get your game face on!
Have you forgot where you're going?
Georgia rules REQUIRE duct tape and blue tarps, they check at the border.
Get that wascally twee out of there and start tearing strips of tape!
It's just cosmetic if its on the outside.
Corrugated tin if you want to put on airs.
Fix that puppy and hold your head high, you from Goja  now!
Anyone says anything show them the  1 of 2000 collectors badge and tell them hillbilly peckerwoods they don't understand.

If you REALLY wanted to show them, put a window unit in the sun roof.

The AC worked great before the giant hole in the roof but I admit I'm a little interested in the window unit on top.  I've never allowed myself to dream that big before.

Need any help getting the tree off your car? I have a chainsaw, duct tape and blue tarps...

Srsly though, need help?

I'm serious, too. Drive that thing. In the land of no car, a car with a hole in its roof is King.

In a week or so, it won’t matter what your vehicle looks like - you’ll need to clobber together a Mad Max mobile. Cut that roof and put in a gunners platform.

Thanks for the offer, we got it off that night though.  We had one of those little electric chainsaws.  Was just big enough to cut that big limb.  We fortunately had a small blue tarp that we lashed over the roof.  

Ironically, before all this storm stuff happened I used to joke all the time about putting gunners turret in its place.  After this election that might not be a bad idea.

Get it covered and then get and estimate. It might be cheaper to fix than you think. Then setup a go fund me page. When the pine tree attached the Ford Ranger the estimated repair cost was $6,000.00 I got the body work done for $1,900.00. Then did the rest myself.

Of course this took about four months. But I still came in under the quote and added a nice bumper and winch. Just saying sometimes it doesn’t hurt to shop around. Plus the wife is happy with the Raptor line paint job.

Good deal.

Yeah, putting comprehensive insurance on it the day after the ice storm and trying to file a claim ain't gonna work.  These people are in the business of finding ways to deny your claims.  

We are just finishing the cleanup on the car as I type this.  We got most of the glass out and removed the remaining carcass of the sunroof.  We put some marine grade vinyl over the hole and duct taped it on so hopefully it'll be drivable.  Unfortunately it won't start now.  Hoping its not some kind of issue with the wiring.  It was a good battery before the smash.

Edit: car started after sitting on the charger.  With the exception of the caved in roof and the covered sunroof area it actually looks pretty good, all things considered.  If it will start and run it'll be usable at least until we get ready to actually start the road trip.  We'll probably try to sell it right before that time and if that fails we'll sell it to a salvage.  Someone could make a good amount of money parting it out.  Those damn Lincoln parts are frickin expensive.

So, it's a crappy situation but it could be worse.  I guess I overreacted a little.  I tend do that.  So yay-ish.

That's a nice looking truck.  I thought Rangers got discontinued in the 90's.  

Discontinued in 2011 and brought back a few years ago. That’s a 09 that’s been a really good truck for running parts and small errands.

Ouch. We had no vehicle damage but multiply sycamores x 10 and place them all around our house. Roof took several hits and the gutters are thrashed. Clean up is going to be long and tiring. I can only hope the roof doesn't need to be replaced. I think we can save all of the trees though. They are all 50ish years old and none suffered trunk damage.

I feel like a genius because i moved my car about an hour before a limb bigger than my thigh landed in it's spot. We lose a lot of limbs off a giant catalpa. I had most everything else trimmed up. Worst ice storm i can remember. A lot of damage throughout the neighborhood. Sad really. A lot of trees aren't going to be coming back. I saw a few oaks older than i, split down the middle and not coming back. Everything still had sap in it and leaves. Bad deal all around.

Hopefully your roof is fine.  This ice storm was the worst I've ever seen.  We lost a couple younger trees and a huge amount of limbs but our big older trees all survived I think.  

As we are in the middle of selling our house the buyer is having the roof inspected again post-ice storm.  I can totally understand that.  What the inspector doesn't know is that all the limbs were trimmed back a couple weeks pre-storm and it didn't take a single hit. Not even the gutters were damaged.  Wish I could say the same thing about the car.  If they claim roof damage this time around I'm going to go off.

We have a giant sweet gum tree in the front yards that always drops big limbs during ice storms.  It's the one that got our car.  I'm glad we didn't lose any of our big trees at least.  We had one in the backyard that was bent over so far the top was touching the ground.  I was really worried about it snapping so as soon as the temp got just over freezing I went out with a softball bat and starting whacking limbs.  After about 15 minutes of that it had raised a good two feet.  After I was done it looked much, much better and the next day it was back to upright.  It probably would have survived without my help but I didn't want to risk it.

Not a big tree fan, here's what my neighbor gifted me, on a sunny 80 degree day

Don't sweat it. If they do then tell them you agree to run it through your insurance if they pay your deductible.