2.23.2023

 

We ended up getting 3-4" of snow overnight.  It was so pretty and looked the way winter is supposed to outside!

Jim had ordered a propane gas top off over the weekend because the driveway had been in great shape and the weather was good.  But they didn't come until this morning.  Jim got a call from the driver - he was starting to back up the driveway and a snowplow was coming down the street, so he quickly backed up to get out of the way.  And backed his giant propane truck directly into our brand new package drop box!  The driver was nice and apologetic and sent Jim these pictures...

Direct hit...

We were all just sick.  Jim spent months of his time building the box and it was perfection.  The driver said that he called it into his dispatch and they would reach out to us.

In the afternoon, Jim went out and plowed the driveway.  This would be his first look at the damage once he got down to the street.

Ugh - it's even worse than the driver's pictures made it seem...

Totally cracked the solid concrete post...

The steel anchor bolts just bent like spaghetti, and one completely sheared off...

Another view...

Knocked the wood on the roof off...

Destroyed the steel siding...

Bent the entire frame so that the perfectly-aligned door is no more...

While not important, the trash can suffered some collateral damage too.  We didn't want to be liable for damages, so we called our trash company and they are going to replace it...

Jim used the bucket on the Bobcat to push the post over so that the box would still be usable.  We didn't want to touch anything else in case the gas company needed to send an insurance adjuster out.

Trying to get the dirt up against the post a bit...

This box has been up only 6 weeks.  Our old box stood for over 4 years without a scratch.  Just makes us sick.  The time and energy that Jim will have to expend to get this fixed up just puts his whole schedule way behind.  Plus, fixing broken things and getting them to be "new" again is so hard.  Obviously the post is trash and all that will have to be done - so renting equipment again will be involved.  

The gas company never called so Jim eventually called them.  It's on us to provide pictures, a story, and an estimate of costs involved.  Even that is a huge time sink.

The problems kept on coming.  Jim finally heard back from the company about the drawer glide issue.  They will accept the return and give us full credit, but we have to pay to send them back.  And they have to be in the original box if it had any manufacturing marks.  But these things are heavy!  Sending them back in two separate boxes would be really cost prohibitive.  So Jim packaged one back in the original box...

The other one had come in a plain box but it was really big and would have added to the cost.  So Jim opened it up and started making his own box to send both back together...

At the end of the day, we know we have much to be thankful for but it's hard not to focus on this problem right now.  The box was just so nice and it made me happy every time I pulled in the driveway!  Sigh...

High 28.2/Low 22.1 - 4" of snow