[ceocards]

I hope many of you saw my last message about our situation at home. I'm back from Chicago now, and am working on getting all the pieces put back together and caught back up with life.

In case you missed it - while I was away in Chicago, we had a massive storm rip through our town. The experts said it was a "derecho" - basically tornado/hurricane speed winds sustaned for 15-20 minutes over a huge area. Most of the houses around us lost partial roofs. Our next door neighbors house was by far the worst, as they lost their entire roof. I was talking with him today, and they think they may have to raze the entire house and start over.

We're luckier than a lot of our neighbors, in that we still have a roof over our heads, but we did have substantial damage to the siding, shingles, a few windows, and (as a result of the windows blowing out) water damage to carpets and other interior furnishings.

I've got a couple packages of trades that were rescued from our mailbox...I'll be re-sending them tomorrow. I haven't opened them, so if there is any damage to any of the cards you receive from me, please let me know and I will reimburse you (either new cards or send back the ones you sent to me) - no questions asked.

I'm going to try to get caught back up as soon as I can...but if you need anything mod related, your best bet will still be to stick with floydtown or Xstream for the next few days.

Chris

[dbroockerd]

Wow! This is terrible news. I hope everyone was okay. Material things are far less important than family and friends. Take care!

[ceocards]

Thanks Derek - luckily no injuries in the entire area, which is amazing since it hit about 5:30 in the morning.

I posted a bunch of pics of the damage in my last thread...

[johnxgodfree]

bummer dude! I missed the other thread, glad you are ok and the damage is just monetary

[dbroockerd]

Man, I just checked the pics. Having that happen to your daughters room had to be scary. That would have been the worst for me. My biggest fear is not being able to get to my kids if they are in danger. We had a huge storm the last month of school here and our sirens forced us into cover. I drove my *** off to get to my daughter in kindergarten about a mile away and we took cover together in the school. The worst thing is I have 3 kids and I can't be in 3 places at once. My wife was with my littlest and my son was at his school, he is 11 so I figured he could handle it better and was smart enough to do what he was told. Ironically he was more scared than anyone cause he understood more than the younger ones. I got to him after they let me out of the school and he was shook up.
Your very lucky Chris.

[toddaray]

Thats terrible, glad you and your family are ok. Are you going to have to move temporarily or anything for renovation or anything or is it still livable. If the roof got ripped off of my house there would be baseball cards scattered for miles. I finished my attic and that is "my" area along with the basement. No cards down there, thats where the expensive stuff goes, DRUMS!

[ceocards]

Ours is still liveable, except for 2 rooms - my younger daughter's room and our office/hobby room. All my cards were safe, but we (read: my wife since I was out of town) had to pull everything out of both rooms, so my cards are a bit disorganized right now.

I was over a the neighbor's today helping him load some stuff - the entire upstairs, and most of the basement has already been stripped down to nothing but the studs and floorboards (after the roof blew off, everything got soaked by the rains). His insurance adjuster and a rebuilder are coming over tomorrow to see if they're going to rebuild around the existing framework, or just bulldoze the entire house and start over.

[chiefsncards275]

that sucks, i am lucky to live in an area where we rarely get any serious storms

[amysb4212]

Glad you made it home safe, Chris. It's too bad that your neighbor's house was trashed that much. I couldn't believe the pics you showed. Stay safe!!

[sastahl]

where in IA are you at? im from Clinton. glad to hear you and your family are ok!