Posted: 6/9/2009 12:19:36 PM EDT
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Just a few observations from my SHTF event last night.
A tornado raced through my ex-wife's neighborhood last night. I watched the storm from a ridge about 3 miles away as I worked my way through the evening rush hour traffic. My daughter was at her mom's with her mom's boyfriend. They made it safely to the basement but the house took a direct hit from the storm. Everyone is ok but it could have been much worse. First problem was a total loss of phone communications. Both land lines and cellhpones were out. The cell service came back up pretty quickly but for about 15 minutes there was no way to contact my daughter. Lesson 1 - have alternate communications arrangements. The next problem was massive traffic jams. Due to power outages and rush hour traffic loads the major roads leading to my daughter became gridlocked. It took almost 40 minutes to cover the 3 miles from where I started to my daughter. I could have gone faster on foot but was unprepared to travel far on foot as I had just come from work and was still in dress clothes and shoes. Lesson 2 - be prepared to move by foot if needed. Have proper footwear and alternate clothing to suit the situation. Normally I have a get home bag but took it out of my trunk to make room for a project over the weekend. Always put it back!!! When I finally reached my ex's subdivision I was denied entry at first because I did not "live" in the neighborhood. The police blocked off the only two roads into the area. I remained calm but made it clear I was entering the area to get to my daughter and how did they want to handle the situation. Lesson 3 - Be prepared to establish your identity, be polite but firm, be willing to cooperate, have proof of your relationship and need to be in the area. Also be prepared to find an alternate method of entry. At this point I was willing to abandon my car and proceed on foot. When I reached the house I was able to quickly find my daughter but we did not have a pre-arranged meeting place. Lesson 4 - have a designated meeting site for locations other than your primary residence where you or your family routinely spend time - school work friends etc. When I saw the house I was truly shaken. My ex has a walkout basement and the neighbor's shed had blown through the basement wall. It left a ten foot by 4 foot hole in the wall and caused structural damage that could have caused a collapse. Other objects blew through the wall at random locations. My daughter spent the storm under a table but it offered no protection from the sides where the debris from the storm came through the wall. Lesson 5 - when taking shelter make sure you have adequate protection from all sides. My ex has a huge family and she is one of those people locally that knows everyone. We were quickly able to reach out to friends and family and start to line up help with cleaning up and securing the house. However I was severely hampered at first because I did not have many of the contacts. Between my daughter and her aunt we were able to get calls for help out quickly. With in an hour we had two roofers, two contractors, about a dozen friends and family and enough supplies to begin securing the house. Lesson 6 - have an established network for support and good up to date contact information. Don't hesitate to ask for help - it is better to have extra help than to try and struggle through alone. My ex was devastated by the damage to her home and by the narrow escape our daughter had. It took two hours to calm her down. Lesson 7 - be ready to deal with emotional affects of such an event. One of the ex's sisters and her best friend were there and were able to console her. If not she would have simply hampered all the clean up and recovery efforts. You are responsible for securing your property. By 930pm (4 hours after the storm) the police removed the roadblocks and left the area except for additional patrols throughout the night. Guarding damaged property does not generate nearly as much revenue as a full night of speed traps and traffic enforcement. The garage door was severely damaged so there was no way to close up the house. And once the police roadblocks were removed hordes of lookie lous started cruising the neighbor hood. Including groups of thugs. My ex's boyfriend had his shotgun and I had my AK and .357 Magnum with me. Lesson 8 - remain vigilant and be prepared to defend yourself. Within hours we had people "volunteering" to help and asking to haul away the scrap metal. We firmly said no one was allowed on the property and not to touch anything. We posted someone front and back for most of the night and kept conversations going with the neighbors during the night. Unlike the commercials and lovely sales materials, your insurance company, the red cross and fema will probably not respond right away. The local firefighters (many volunteers) were the best help. They quickly checked all homes for injuries, helped shutdown gas lines and assisted as much as possible. As it got dark they set up spot lights so we could continue to work on securing and closing in the roof. The insurance company - State Farm - was a total joke. They said we could call back tomorrow from 8 to 5 to schedule someone to come out to look at the house. They should be on site by Thursday. I will be looking for a new insurance carrier. About 9pm a fema truck made a single pass through the area, passed out a few bottles of water and then vanished never to be seen again. Lesson 9 - do not wait for help to come. Fema, the police, insurance companies and rescue groups have other priorities. Be prepared to do what you need and don't become a victim by waiting for someone else to take charge. Sorry if this is a long and at times rambling. In someways I needed to vent and I also wanted a reminder for myself of what went right and what went wrong. Thank God no one was hurt and everything that was damaged can be rebuilt. |
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Good AAR.
I am involved in disaster response and the biggest lesson is: do not rely on outside help being available. If it is, great, use it, but don't expect it. Years ago a tornado wiped out the house of a fellow SAR team member and a nearby tornado blew the roof off the K-mart where his wife worked. That added an extra dimension to what we do normally... |
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Good AAR and tips...
Glad everyone is safe. However, I am surprised that the police removed the barriers and cut any anti-looting patrols so quickly, that seems strange. I would be interested to know their logic. I have seen similar disasters where they kept up baracades for weeks. Red cross and fema are not going to provide immediate response, I doubt either live in your neighborhood like the local firefighters, (i.e. first responders) do. The Insurance company is a bit different, you should have a local agent who can provide some immediate help (i.e. cash advance). but it appears you might be looking for them to do something else..... not sure what that would be. They are not going to secure your home or guard your belongings. They are not going to send repair people out or authorize any work to be done. These are all things that you will have to do yourself. The only thing an adjuster can do is write an estimate to either re-build or total the home, give you inventory lists to fill out for the personal property so you can be paid for that. They can give you an additional advance payment if needed and help find temporary housing, but thats about it. |
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good to hear everyone is safe! houses can be fixed.
Red cross showed up here for a flood and gave us a 2 gallon bucket. inside was a flash light , propaganda and I think 2 bottles of water. There may or may not have been somthing else in it I cant remember but yeah once the utilitys were shut down the only help for elderly was volenteer firemen and some other citizen from higher ground with a backhoe to get the elderly out.... what a jokeon the part of ANY real aid. Mind you they have been saying they are going to fix the river for 45 years btw THEY CHANGED IT IN THE 1st place and created the issue lol |
Good job doing everything you could for the daughter/ex.
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Thanks for the feedback and well wishes. We all got through it and now the rebuilding starts. I am especially proud of my daughter. She held up great, never panicked and did the best she could to protect herself.
Nothing teaches like first hand experience. The insurance company is still a huge pain. Our goal the first night was to get a claim established and get confirmation about what we could or could not do in terms of immediate repairs and would those expenses be covered. My advice is do what you need to do to secure things and worry about the rest later. As an example, we still do not know if expenses for tarps, roofing materials, etc. for the immediate repairs will be covered. Fortunately we did not spend a lot of money and it may get credited to the deductible if its not covered under the policy. And the nitpicking with State Farm has already started. The message is clear use our preferred contractors or expect us to review and delay everything. And because my ex has not remarried yet (they are engaged and planning to get married soon), her boyfriend's loses and expenses are not covered. They even said they would not provide hotel vouchers if he were to stay there. I have tarps at my house but my ex did not. They are cheap and handy for many things. From now on I will have a couple heavy ones packed away as part of my extended SHTF kit. And some larger ones come in handy - we needed one 40 x 60 to cover up one end of the house down to the ground. Because access to the area was limited at first it was hard getting supplies in and out. Having a couple of tarps and 10 or 20 firring strips would have saved 2 hours off the time it took to cover up the roof. The other frightening thing is the horde of fly by night contractors that descend on these places. By 8am the next morning there were dozens of signs for gypsy contractors for trash removal, roofing, siding, landscaping and general repairs. They even had people going door to door soliciting work. I run a small business and understand the need to take advantage of opportunities but this is alarming. We are only dealing with local people we know have good reputations. I guess the biggest lessons are still be prepared, stay calm, be proactive and as always do what you need to do to get through the crisis and figure the rest out later. |
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This sounds very familiar to me. I had a similar chain of events after the May 3rd, 1999 tornado in Moore, OK. I drove from South OKC to my Fiance's house (now my wife). All phones were down. Traffic was snarled. It took me over an hour to get to her mother's house (normally would have taken about 10-minutes).
Many houses were flattened outright. There are very few basements here, and it is a wonder more people didn't get killed here. There were lots of gas leaks, downed power lines, etc. I'm glad that this event had a happy ending for you. |
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Thanks for the AAR. Glad to see your girl and your ex are not hurt. This better than reading a book. First hand account beats anything hands down. Keep an eye out for your daughter. Shes going to need support for what she went through. But in time it will make her a stronger person. |