Solman

Our good old USA sure has a variety of weather, right along with natural disasters. As a sixty-something guy, I spent the first half of my life in the Chicago suburban/northwest Indiana area. No stranger to cold, snow, and hot humid summers. As a kid we lost our detached garage to a tornado and as an adult, as a teacher I lead my students on tornado drills. The second half of my life has been spent in Southern California where I lead my students with earthquake drills.

The weather here is fantastic and with my history I do have sympathy for those who store their SCs for the winter, while I'm cruising with the top down about 90 % of the time. I count my blessings every day. Easy to live here, but it wasn't easy leaving family and friends behind, although my wife and I raised our three sons here and they all stayed local.

I'm sure some of you followed my trials and tribulations with my latest SC purchase. If not, the short story is that my newly purchased (sight unseen) 2010 SC 430 needed a total repaint that was unplanned. Last week, it went to paint with a plan of picking it up 2 days ago.

EARTHQUAKE!!!!! You can see my luck has changed. This shop is 1,000 yards from Fridays epicenter. My SC was still in the spray booth drying area, next to a rack with another car raised on it. The owner of the shop drove back to the shop at 1am to see if the car fell off the rack and totaled my SC. Well, the car did fall off the rack and totaled the car next to it. It turns out that the guy closing up the shop did the morning guys a favor by moving the car that was next in line for paint where my car WAS and that car did get crushed by the other car. My SC was unscathed and is now back in my garage-although I think it's calling me right now for some exercise. It appears my luck has changed.
My home is another good story. My house was built in 1964, when they didn't consider earthquakes at all. In 2005, I put up an addition and retrofitted my home for earthquake construction and that helped tremendously last week. All my neighbors had damage in nearly every room, where I had one old antique whiskey bottle that fell to the floor and broke. It was in my man cave-garage and fell to the floor where the 70 year old bottle broke into a lot of pieces-very small loss. And that was my only loss! My neighbors on both sides of me had their water heaters leaking from the shaking, while my tankless water heater was fine. Sometimes, we make our own luck, while other times it's truly a matter a luck-this was a mix of both.

All things considered, I'll take earthquake country and be able to drive top-down year round. This country has no place in it that's not prone to some type of disaster.

DarthSid

Amen to that Solman! I felt the quake, and jumped to my aquarium to hold it in place. Lost some water, but no damage. I quickly walked to my garage to check on my baby covered in its cover. I was happy no damage or falling objects in my home. Nice story, and what luck, your car has nine lives.

Lexeffect

Great story Solman! I was thinking of you during that earthquake. I'm very happy for you and how your SC430 looks after the full repaint and chromed wheels. Drive it in good health my friend! I knew the car would turn out well, and your pic in your other post confirmed that.

Solman

Thanks for the support. I know in the earthquake I had a feeling that you have no control over the situation you are in. That would also apply to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and mudslides. I guess the best we can do is to be as prepared the best we can be. I highly recommend the flashlight app for your cell phone if possible. We immediately lost power and used that app right away.

In a closely related topic is insurance. I would be interested what insurance covers your home in a disaster. The reason most Californians do NOT carry insurance is because of the cost and what it covers. I know very few people who carry it here's why. I pay $1300/ yr (x30 yrs= over $35k) and here is what I get for the money: for a house valued at $530k (house not land) the deductable is 15%-I have to pay the first $80k and that only covers the structure. It also cover $5k for personal belongings such as furnishings and it also covers $1500 for temporary housing but both Have the same deductable of $80k. Every year, I make the decision to keep the insurance just in case we get hit by the big one and I lose my house. It is now almost paid off so most of my money is tied up in equity. I get so upset every time we have a disaster in this country and you get congressman blaming the victims who have no insurance. If we get hit by the "big one", will insurance companies be viable any more. How do other areas of the country handle disaster insurance?

I know I'm way off topic from my SC, but it turns out most of us do have to worry about Mother Nature. Please let me know how you are covered for hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, mudslides and earthquakes outside of California. I'm sure I'm leaving out many other disasters such as drought, cold weather, etc, which is why this effects us all.

Harold57

I'm glad to hear that you, your house and your car made it through relatively unscathed.

tromly

Solman, you are a gentleman and a scholar! Good luck to you bro, I always enjoy your posts.