One of my worst nightmares comes to life(flood related) PICS

[txcarr85]

Re: One of my worst nightmares comes to life(flood related)

Sorry to hear about your loss. I'm working in owego ny and i must say being from Texas I've never seen anything like it. It's a sad sight seeing so many people lose everything and have it just sitting in the front yard. Glad your family is safe.

 

[A_Pharis]

Re: One of my worst nightmares comes to life(flood related)

THis thread is full of "suck". So sorry, guys.

 

[pujols5hof]

Re: One of my worst nightmares comes to life(flood related)

in the last 4 years we have had 3 floods, many near miss tornadoes, and an epic ice storm here in boondocks, missouri.
EVERY time, i load up my alberts into my dodge ram (which is always gassed up) and get ready to execute the evacuation plan.
the ice storm, i had trees bent over and frozen to the roof for 8 days. no epic damage
the floods, we are the highest area in town. it got closer to the doors than ever this time though. no house damage
tornadoes test the plan though. i drive a different vending/entertainment route every day. i listen to sports talk radio and get weather warnings and i also call my wife at home when the sky darkens ("honey, turn on the noaa radar site and let me know"). i've pulled into this house during tornado warnings at least 5 times after driving 90+ all the way.
no damage other than shingles, trees, and im putting a metal roof on this winter
no damages ... yet

 

[Derek2011]

Re: One of my worst nightmares comes to life(flood related)

I really do appreciate the above couple posts offering to send things of the player(s) I collect, but like I said in my OP, Im not looking for handouts. If you do have any rare Vladimir Guerrero or Drew Bledsoe singles, feel free to PM me with what you have if you are looking to sell or trade(not that I have anything really to trade) them as I WILL be rebuilding the collection.

I realize Im not the only one in this situation as this flood has wreaked havoc among MANY of us. Feel free to chime in and share your experience as others have.


Thanks
Derek

 

[Derek2011]

Finally was able to upload some pics. Gonna try to keep them in chronological order.

Upon arrival. Tough to tell as I'm working with my phone for a camera and no electric as we cut the power in case electric was running thru the water. Cards floating around and bottom row of boxes completely submersed.

After we were able to get the water out.

The good stuff/PC that was kept under the futon. I know, clearly the worst place for it

Somehow, it worked out that this was just scanned and I left it on the keyboard, thankfully!

One of my faves completely soaked. Many of the patch cards ended up like this one. I will just "put it back together" in a screwdown and leave it like that. No secondary value, just personal value.

Boxes upon boxes of destroyed and trashed singles.

Bottom row of comic boxes drenched and trashed. Some that were in bags were saved with minor water damage

Can filled to the gill of comics that are trashed

Luckily, a majority of my sportlots inventory was above water level and saved. However, this stuff could have been soaked and trashed without any personal loss. I will just take what is sold here and re-establish my collection.

The end result sitting out at the curb waiting to be picked up by the trash collectors. On a side note, many neighborhood kids came by and scooped up some cards. They had a blast going thru the cards and picking out some of their favorite teams/players. Despite them being soaked, they didn't care and it put a smile on their face as it did mine as I knew the cards would have a better home than the junk yard.

 

[manningmurphyfan]

Very sorry to hear about your cards and comics. I'm glad to see you were able to save some of it. I was hoping to see that you would get reimbursed for them but did not realize how much of a PITA it is to get insurance for them or even what homeowners will cover. I do hope they come through and cover the costs to repair the home's damage.

The area I live in is near the Missouri and we had 1/3 of our community that had to evacuate in early June due to the floods and the fact they built a second levee (helped people where I live but people still got ground water in their basements down the street). They are in the process of taking the levee down now and people have been allowed to enter their homes and assess the damage for about a month now. I'm not sure how many people aren't moving back in but it is a mess and I'm sure will have a huge impact on the community.

The thing that really sucked was FEMA declared 6/1 as the date you had to have flood insurance for this event even though most of us were not in what was considered a flood plain. We purchased ours on 6/6 so we basically pissed the money down the drain in the event we did get water. We also emptied the basement and plugged everything up over Memorial Day weekend because we had no idea what to expect. One of the craziest things I've been a part of outside of being deployed as it basically looked like a disaster zone here with the Guard and people scrambling to get their things moved out.

 

[ffgameman]

How extensive was your Guerrero collection? Low-end, high-end, a mixture, etc?

 

[daveyou]

Wow...I am so sorry to see this...that absolutely sucks, bud...

Glad at least toy were able to save a little but that really is every collector's nightmare...

Stay strong n hope you can start fresh on your pc...

Dave

 

[Derek2011]

How extensive was your Guerrero collection? Low-end, high-end, a mixture, etc?

http://s32.photobucket.com/albums/d25/DEREK2011/Vlad The Impaler/
Link to my Vlad album. Just a sample as I had tons more to scan.

 

[bear0555]

Cards really are so much more than just cardboard. Good luck with it all and glad to hear you will still be collecting.

 

[craftysouthpaw]

I can't imagine how this must feel and no words can properly express the sympathy needed. It isn't just cardboard but a major part of who we all are as people.

I'm not trying to sound callous but this is as good of a time as any to urge all of you to purchase a separate insurance policy to cover your stuff. It is a bit pricey but it is well worth it IMO. I know a ton of my own collection is irreplaceable and insurance proceeds would be a poor, poor substitute but the same can be said of insurance on a house if you think about it. A collection is more than cardboard just like a house is more than wood, brick, etc. - but insurance is still a wise idea to at least provide a safety net for the money invested.

I use Collectibles Insurance Services LLC (www.collectinsure.com) and the process is quite easy. Home owner's policies typically wont adequately cover sports collections and the State Farm's of the world don't deal with this type of specialized coverage very often so the quotes I received from them were really, really high.

And just to avoid questions, I am not affiliated with that company in any manner beyond being a customer for the last five years or so.

Best of luck to the OP.

 

[TBTwinsFan]

Those pics are scary. Thankfully, some kids were able to enjoy them.

I should have said earlier, but any 70's-80's cards (auto'd) that got soaked can be returned to close to normal. I left a TTM on the driveway by accident (must have dropped it) and it ended up raining. I just placed the card on the dash of the van I was driving to dry and it's got wrinkled a tad (could have been from being driven over) but the card was fine.

I feel really bad that you lost your collection. Good luck rebuilding.

 

[jlvjr16]

such a beautiful neigborhood you live in but devastated by flooding..I live in Hazleton, PA and I go to work daily from Hazleton to Scranton....alot of counties were flooded...and FEMA is on this from what I hear on the radio...sorry to hear about this lost...I probably have some Vladimir Guerrero IP Autographs ....I will see what I can do...check back with me via email...cos I will forget...

 

[David Campos]

This thread is pretty depressing to read.

I'm sure I have some dupes on Vlad that I might be willing to move but not sure if you would be interested in starting over again. If you're interested, send me a PM. It will give me a reason to organize what I have. I have a lot of his cheaper low end stuff but I have a few extra Game Used cards of his.

 

[predatorkj]

At the risk of sounding like an ass I think this thread is a great lesson we can learn from. It's my honest opinion if you live in a home with a basement, keep all of your stuff like this off the floor. I'm in Texas and a lot of our homes do not have a basement. But also, if you live anywhere near an area that is prone to hurricanes...keep your collection mobile enough to haul off within a day's notice. A tornado...yeah...you don't really have any control over that.

I'm not going to say this is the OP's fault. Not at all. I'd go out on a limb and say you are sharp enough to not haphazardly do something with your collection. So I'll assume this is not an area you thought would flood. Sadly there was a flood and this did happen. So, everyone with a collection in the basement, do yourself a favor and make some adjustments. Guys living where hurricanes hit or can hit, do what you have to do. If you guys have personal collections, nobody wants this to happen to them. Do what you gotta do.

I'm sorry this happened to you. Really, I'd be devastated. I'm glad to see you're gonna keep going. There isn't a thing I could say that would make you feel any better. I personally am not too trustworthy of collectible insurance. So I'd say we all need to do whatever we can to make our stuff as safe as possible. Everyone here works too damn hard to have their stuff ruined.