October 2005

October 30, 2005

This was cute:

http://www.hallmark.com/wcsstore/HallmarkStore/images/products/ecards/nfg1969.swf

David sent in a fantastic photo:We will be away for a few days, Saturday and Sunday at Jim & Michelles in Berwick, Maine then on to Karen & Mikes in Charlton, Mass. until Wednesday.David & Jean

Darrell has a new email address.

October 28, 2005

Another week has gone by! Time flies when you are having fun! I have been working long hours, only 4 hours of sleep most nights. Now there is talk about closing the operation here in Alabama and moving it to Florida! I may be the center of that operation to take care of Wilma related projects. It has warmed up considerably, now in the 70’s in the mornings. 

We went to a motel that had storm surge damage. It was funny seeing this room:

Above shows the smashed in room, below you see in the room that the bed is still made, the pictures are on the wall and the lampshades are in place!

Not much is new, still going to buildings that are no longer there. When we were in Waveland – a town that has been wiped out, we found the steel framework which held up the cement roof of the building we were working on 150 feet inland from the building. It was amazing that a steel framework went so far, it would have gone further but it wrapped around a tree.

Above is the remains of the building (looking southeast), below, looking north, is the roof, it had gone past the two buildings to the north and ended up wrapped around the tree! It had bent so much that the two ends were almost touching! Not one piece of roofing was still attached to the steel frame.

Next to the building I was approached by this guy:

He had lost his home and was camping out. The doll is his “Insurance Adjuster”, he “does not say much”.

We at this moment are crossing Mobile Bay, heading to Pascagoula to inspect a gun shop and a seat cover business, then we will be going back to Waveland to look at a huge home that is no longer there. Here in Mobile the cruise ship with Federal relief personnel on it is still here. The USS Alabama is now listing to starboard. I wish I had time to go look at it, but we will not be back by here tonight until about 8 PM.

October 24, 2005

It  is COLD out! It is 45 degrees cold!!!! We all had to go out and purchase jackets! It was 105 degrees a month ago here! We were out looking at roofs yesterday and decided to stop on the way home to the condo and get some warmer clothing, it is a good thing that we did! I still do mot have warm enough clothing to go out and last long on a roof with this wind, hopefully I will not have to. 

The procedure is: We have a meeting  (or I get a call) every evening at 8 PM saying meet so-and-so at his car at 6 AM or 7 AM. Then I either am lead or not on the projects for the day. If I do not get the call I stay in and write reports or do research. If I go out we drive to the property where there is the question. In some cases the property owner wants a new roof where he had a 20 year old roof that had leaked for years. In other cases we try to find out whether it was wind or rain or rising water which caused the damage as I indicated yesterday. This is kind of fun: we never know what to expect. Today we are going to five different jobs. The first is a house a block from the water in Waveland and we are to “determine the cause of the loss”. The second is (was) on the beach in Biloxi, we are to “Determine causation wind vs water.”. Third is a building on the north side of the RR tracks in Biloxi- “Determine the cause of loss.” Fourth and fifth are apartment complexes in Biloxi “Wind vs Surge/flood”. We had been to them before and just need to get some loose ends covered.

Yesterday Rex was on a roof with the adjuster when he stepped through a translucent panel. He fell through but caught himself on his elbows. The adjuster lifted him up. It could have been worse, but Rex is muscular and was all right. Rex is sore today!

Today I am out with my boss and his boss. It might be interesting, I have not been with them in the field before. The work will keep us out until 10 or 11 tonight.

It is now 10 PM, and we made it back! The temp got up to short sleeve weather this afternoon! We got a lot done!

October 24, 2005

Well, hurricane Wilma went through in a hurry! It also was far enough south so all the family was spared the worst. Pam’s parents live in Sarasota and were 95 miles from the center, so they got quite a bit of wind. They had evacuated and came up to Pam’s sister’s home in Pinellas County. Hopefully the winds did no damage to their home – they had installed hurricane shutters last week! The east coast (Miami and north) got a lot more wind than I think they expected.

We have seen some interesting things. Our purpose is to determine whether damage was caused by the wind – which our client is responsible for – or the water, which FEMA flood insurance covers. On one church the portico came down, but it tried to pull the wall with it! The entire wall was tilted out – 5 inches at the top to nothing at the bottom. 

The roof of the portico was on the ground. The wind was 125 mph here and the water came up to 2 feet below the peak in the roof. At first I thought that the wind had blown the portico off, but then we looked at it further. If it had blown off, the wall would not have flexed – there also were no broken windows, no chips or scrapes on the building, etc. We now think that as the water came up, it floated the portico, then the column supports loosened and floated away. As the water slowly receded, the portico had no support and thus slowly flexed the wall until it fell off, leaving a bent out wall. They don’t call us forensic engineers for nothing!

On other properties we have an even harder job, if the building is entirely gone, what took it away? The owner of the business we went to today showed us these pictures of his home:

Before

 What took this house out, the wind or the water? If the wind was 150 mph, and came an hour before the storm surge, was the wind strong enough to blow the building away? Was the construction strong enough to withstand that wind? If not why not (can they go after the original contractor and sue them for lousy construction?)? With no building how can you tell? It means a millions of dollars to the insurance company for us to tell them if it was the wind, the water or bad construction!

October 22, 2005

Rex and I are returning from Gulfport, Mississippi to our rented condo in Orange Beach, Alabama. Parts of Gulfport are coming back, and the cleaning crews are constantly working to haul debris away. The buildings that are mostly destroyed are being demolished and trucked off. 

Above is a piece of plastic imbedded in a wall! 

A piece of plywood impaled on a branch. 

There are funny things the wind can do!

I have been working 6 days a week for 11 to 12 hours a day. It makes the time fly! I am now waiting for Rex to come out of a store – he is getting coffee!

October 13, 2005

Darrell and Marilyn:

Hi,

Hope this is finding you all well.  We are doing great! We are very proud of our children. 

Justin is missing the US after spending a month in the States, but they have been traveling in Europe . Tyler, a senior at Largo High is working two jobs after starting his own lawn care business. Caleb is getting used to Clearwater High School in his freshman year.

Adam is now employed with the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office as a Detention Deputy. He will start the academy on October 24th.

Tina is now home from Iraq and is stationed back in Camp LeJeune , NC . Tami is loving boot camp in Parris Island , SC. 

Love to all,  

Darrell and Marilyn

Then Donald wrote:

Hi John,
I scanned in a preview of Stephen’s senior picture and touched it up a bit. This is the preview we will probably use for his yearbook. 

Both the kids are fine. It’s been a nice fall here in the bay area.

Don

More Katrina pictures:

Interesting bit of work by the wind.

A 2 by 6 poked through the roof.

Wind Art.

Humor

More humor in the face of disaster.

More frustration.

Found debris.

Before.

After

Before

Weekend trip weather:

Amy and Darren’s weather:

Dad and Betty’s weather:

Susan and Al’s weather:

David’ and jeans weather:

Donald and jeanne’s weather:

Daniel and candy’s weather:

Heather and michael’s weather:

Rod and jill’s weather:


See you in Florida : 2006!

2006Darrell & Marilyn1998John’s Boat
2007Dan & Candy2002 
2008Sue and Al2005David and Jean’s Housewarming party,
       Pocomoonshine Lake, Princeton, Maine
2009John  
2010Donald