November
11/1. One more day trip to the house, several trips to the local storage, which wound up saving a lot more stuff than would have been possible if I was only relying on the Niceville storage, since that was at least a two hour drive, one way compared to 20 minutes round trip. Had a big thunderstorm kick up and the tarping seemed to do quite well, all things considered. To the best of my memory, that was the first real weather we had since the storm's passage. I also had an appointment with Panhandle Insulation to replace the garage door and Chance showed up on time, measure things out and gave me an estimate, which I contracted for on the spot. He couldn't commit to a time-table, but told me that they were about 3-4 weeks in manufacturing, so probably closer to 6-8 weeks due to the demand. Hey, it was better than doing nothing and my first real progress, not counting the fact I had an appointment for the Water mitigation people to start on the 4th Then I set out for Drove to Daytona Beach. Looking forward to taking as much of a mental break as I can with the Magic Fest. Got to DB by 1600 in time to check in and hit the dealer room.
11/2. Wow, that bed in the Hilton was comfortable! I slept very well and didn't hardly think about the house. I did wind up needing to make some calls, but fortunately, the first lecturer was Josh Jay, whom I had seen at PCAM in August. Once I confirmed that he would be giving essentially the same lecture, I apologized, left and made some calls as well as paid my property taxes since I had paid off the loan. I did make it back for Andy Gladwin's lecture and although he said it would be much the same as PCAM, it was entirely different to my recolection. Caught the shows at the News Center, did some late night sessioning and gladly went back to that bed.
11/3. Drove back to the house to meet with the Auto Adjuster. Where I thought were minor scratches, he found otherwise and printed up a repair estimate of over $7k. I moved the last bit what what I had not yet carried out but still wanted to save to the living room as well as pack up the California King size Waterbed Mattress and heater. End of the day, I loaded up a few more Totes and drove to Niceville, but not until I got my nerve up to turn off every swicth in the house and then turn on the circuit breaker panel and access my situation. Everything worked... Well, every circuit worked... some light fixtures had been ripped out when the ceilings collapsed, so I did not flip those switches. But I had power around. I thought the damage control crew was going to need to use them, but they had there own generator, so that probably saved me a huge power bill. USAA paid the damage control crew directly as they had arranged for them
11/4-11/8 House was completely gutted for mold/water damage mitigation. between what they did and what I had already done, there were 3 industrial size dumpsters taken from the property with wallboard, insulation and personal property. They saved what they could, but with no PODS or other temp storage, once the garage was filled with the bigger stuff, a lot had to go. If there was any question, I had them throw it away... I did not spend much time in the area because they were wearing hazmat type suits for the most part and figured I needed to avoid that kind of exposure. I gave some specific instructions regarding pictures, certificates and awards and waited outside while they brought those to me so I could at least take pictures and choose which to save. I mentally wrote off everything left in the house that I had not moved to storage or the living room/garage. There will be some replacing to do in the future.
11/9 Another rainy day, but the cleaners had set up pumps and dehydrators, so I did not have to deal with the leaks, although the tarp job that Jeff and I had done did pretty darn well. More stuff to storage, including a bunch of space bags full of stuf I had either washed at Jeff's or had cleaned at the Magic Kastle laundry in Niceville.
11/10-11/23. I took a break. I went to the Magic Castle, met my parents in San Diego and then flew to Seattle for my big birthday. Shortly after I left, the cleaners picked up their drying equipment and the last dumpster (of three) was hauled away. Fortunately, it did not rain much while I was gone, but they left what had not been hauled away covered, just in case. Overall a great group of people in the crew and I can not thank them enough for doing what they did so that I did not have to deal with potential personal issues.
11/28 I looked at my first house in Niceville, realizing that unless I could find a contractor quickly, I may need to look at other options. I did have an appointment with Home Depot to talk Siding, but they did not do roofs. I also bought some LED shop lights at Sam's club to help in the garage and kitchen/bedrooms. With a lot of the walls torn out, I got pretty good coverage from the one light in the kitchen; the living room and MBR closet still had working fictures.
11/29 Installed both LED shop lights, after installing AC sockets. The previus lights had been hard wired, but now it seems that shop lights are designed to be plugged in.
11/30 Bought/Filled/Stored more Spacebags
11/2. Wow, that bed in the Hilton was comfortable! I slept very well and didn't hardly think about the house. I did wind up needing to make some calls, but fortunately, the first lecturer was Josh Jay, whom I had seen at PCAM in August. Once I confirmed that he would be giving essentially the same lecture, I apologized, left and made some calls as well as paid my property taxes since I had paid off the loan. I did make it back for Andy Gladwin's lecture and although he said it would be much the same as PCAM, it was entirely different to my recolection. Caught the shows at the News Center, did some late night sessioning and gladly went back to that bed.
11/3. Drove back to the house to meet with the Auto Adjuster. Where I thought were minor scratches, he found otherwise and printed up a repair estimate of over $7k. I moved the last bit what what I had not yet carried out but still wanted to save to the living room as well as pack up the California King size Waterbed Mattress and heater. End of the day, I loaded up a few more Totes and drove to Niceville, but not until I got my nerve up to turn off every swicth in the house and then turn on the circuit breaker panel and access my situation. Everything worked... Well, every circuit worked... some light fixtures had been ripped out when the ceilings collapsed, so I did not flip those switches. But I had power around. I thought the damage control crew was going to need to use them, but they had there own generator, so that probably saved me a huge power bill. USAA paid the damage control crew directly as they had arranged for them
11/4-11/8 House was completely gutted for mold/water damage mitigation. between what they did and what I had already done, there were 3 industrial size dumpsters taken from the property with wallboard, insulation and personal property. They saved what they could, but with no PODS or other temp storage, once the garage was filled with the bigger stuff, a lot had to go. If there was any question, I had them throw it away... I did not spend much time in the area because they were wearing hazmat type suits for the most part and figured I needed to avoid that kind of exposure. I gave some specific instructions regarding pictures, certificates and awards and waited outside while they brought those to me so I could at least take pictures and choose which to save. I mentally wrote off everything left in the house that I had not moved to storage or the living room/garage. There will be some replacing to do in the future.
11/9 Another rainy day, but the cleaners had set up pumps and dehydrators, so I did not have to deal with the leaks, although the tarp job that Jeff and I had done did pretty darn well. More stuff to storage, including a bunch of space bags full of stuf I had either washed at Jeff's or had cleaned at the Magic Kastle laundry in Niceville.
11/10-11/23. I took a break. I went to the Magic Castle, met my parents in San Diego and then flew to Seattle for my big birthday. Shortly after I left, the cleaners picked up their drying equipment and the last dumpster (of three) was hauled away. Fortunately, it did not rain much while I was gone, but they left what had not been hauled away covered, just in case. Overall a great group of people in the crew and I can not thank them enough for doing what they did so that I did not have to deal with potential personal issues.
11/28 I looked at my first house in Niceville, realizing that unless I could find a contractor quickly, I may need to look at other options. I did have an appointment with Home Depot to talk Siding, but they did not do roofs. I also bought some LED shop lights at Sam's club to help in the garage and kitchen/bedrooms. With a lot of the walls torn out, I got pretty good coverage from the one light in the kitchen; the living room and MBR closet still had working fictures.
11/29 Installed both LED shop lights, after installing AC sockets. The previus lights had been hard wired, but now it seems that shop lights are designed to be plugged in.
11/30 Bought/Filled/Stored more Spacebags
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