black mamba

Late in 2017, hurricane Irma stormed through north Florida and hit Jacksonville pretty hard. It was 2:30 A.M., the wind was howling with a pronounced ferocity. Rain was coming down in torrents. My wife and I couldn't sleep so we had moved into the kitchen and were sitting at the breakfast bar.

We heard an ungodly sound and felt some strong vibrations through the floor. I jumped up, went and opened the door from the kitchen to the garage and was greeted with the scene you see in these pictures. A humongous oak tree, that was about 10 feet from the house, had been uprooted and come crashing down. It completely destroyed the garage and both of our daily driver cars....her brand new Subaru .( less than 1,000 miles on it ) and my prized 2015 Golf R. I had just gotten my car back ,less than two weeks before this incident, after having it trucked to Atlanta for some serious performance upgrades. A trio of young guys up there are recognized as being some of the best in the country at working with VW stuff. On the dyno, my car was putting out 462 HP at the wheels, slightly over 500 HP at the crank. I hadn't yet had a chance to take it to the track but I can tell you that you had better be ready when you turned it loose.

Fortunately, the house structure suffered no damage....it was all limited to the garage. Therefore, we didn't have to vacate the home while repairs were being done. Our other two cars were in the other garage at the other end of the home , so we had wheels. Including some stuff that was stored over the garage, the total insured loss was $181,000. I had to pay a $5,000 deductible, the rest was paid by the insurance company.

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Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Those must be hard photos to look at Tom.

black mamba

You know, Jack, they really are. It was a life-changing event for me. I don't look at these shots very often.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

Emotional loss can't be replaced by money. But I'm glad you got funds for the physical replacement.

black mamba

Thanks for commenting, Kathy.

You often hear people, who have been through events like this, complain about how they had to go tooth-and-nail with their insurance company over all sorts of stuff. I have insurance through AAA. Our agent was the star of the show in getting all of this done...professionally and as quickly as possible. She took a huge burden off of my wife and I.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

Yep. Hurricanes will do that. We had two in the same year, a flood, a record freeze, and Covid all in the same year. I feel your pain.

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

Man, that’s tough. Thank goodness for insurance.

billmck Loc: Central KY

The Subaru would be easy to replace, but not too sure about how one would replace the Golf R with all the work you had done on it. Hopefully it all worked out for you.

Bill

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

Tom, lucky that you and your wife survived, sorry for the loss of your cars, especially the VW.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

An horrific event well recorded, Tom! Sorry for the turmoil.

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

Wow! People all over the country/world deal with stuff like this! But it seems that Florida gets more than it's share! AAA is one of the best!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Sad for the damage. Some of those puppies can wreak havoc.
Been through over 25 and really lucked out.
A friends house from Hurricane Charlie, not so much.

bikinkawboy Loc: north central Missouri

I’ve had two tornadoes follow nearly identical paths across my place 10 years apart. I had a lot of cleaning up to do but I was unscathed. I had a lightning bolt strike right in front of me about 50’ away. It was the color of white hot metal and flowed like water. Again I lucked out. My philosophy is that whatever doesn’t kill you makes for a good story later. You and your wife are alive and uninjured, so consider that a blessing and know that you have a good story to tell. Especially when some old coot tries to impress others with a lesser story, you jump in and come through like a rock star!

black mamba

I hear you,Ken.

You go through enough of that kind of stuff and you began to examine some options about where you really want to live.

black mamba

Thanks for the visit.

And a big " Amen " to your last statement.