The Ott-Seven Ice Monster
It is often in the wake of a natural disaster or personal catastrophe that a writer shines his brightest.Unfortunately, I'm not a writer. So I'm going to cut through the smarm and go straight for the payoff. But first, allow me to set the scene:
-My home city of Springfield, Missouri, along with the entire region, got nailed by a once-in-a-generation ice storm this week, which demolished myriad trees, damaged countless houses, and snuffed the electrical power from 2/3 of the city (many of which are still waiting.)
-My wife Christina and I ended up camping "in" with our neighbors two doors down, who also lost power, but have a wood-burning stove. Christina got the blame for the entire storm, since she said the day before it hit that she wanted to get to know our neighbors better.
Cliche Lessons We Should Have Learned:
-We grow stronger through adversity.
-Our society is addicted to technology, and one day computers will be our masters.
-We have lots of stuff, and we take it all for granted, no matter how many times we vow not to.
-We should not wait until the next newsworthy event to get to know our neighbors better (like the block's mail getting canceled because of a miscreant Rottweiler. Yes... that IS news in Springfield. I was on TV. No, it wasn't my Rottweiler.)
All glibness aside, I do want to express my gratitude to Beth and Stephanie for taking us in, to Heather, Jill and Lucas for helping make it comfortable and fun, and to Andrew and Steve for cheerfully applying their chainsaws to our tree debris. But there are still many more who can't see their way out of this crisis yet... let's not forget to pray for them, and help however we can.
Big finish... more pictures:
Labels: autobiography, humor
Posted at 9:58 PM
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We finally got our power back on yesterday (after 12 days). While we were fortunate on the exterior damage front (all of our trees are at the end of our lot), but we did have our fully finished basement flood with 12" of water from one end to the next. It's estimated that there is about $15,000 worth of damage, and of course, it's not covered under insurance.
Anyone good at doing interior remodeling? :)
Oh man... that sucks. Is it not covered because you don't have flood insurance?
I just can't believe it's not covered. If it's a direct result of the ice storm it really seems like you're getting unnecessarily hosed. Of course I'm no expert on home-owner's insurance, but maybe you should talk to a lawyer.
I don't have any expertise, but if there's anything else I (Ryan) can do to help... let me know, man. I feel terrible for you guys.
speaking of flood insurance, we had it... and when the ice storm hit in 2001 in Kansas City (or was that 2002 ?) - our flood insurance wouldn't cover our flooded basement and the utter mess and damage it did! They said we needed to have damage to our furnace or something else very major!
coreman - we never thought to speak to a lawyer, but going to court with the only flood insurance in the country (because it is all controlled by the government) would have been monetarily, physically, mentally, and logistically impossible... I mean who can fight the government without a class action suit...
then we called our home insurance company about our flooded basement at the same time, and they refused us too..
A good attorney might have helped but the cost is sometimes outrageous, not to mention forever burning the bridge with the insurance company.
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