Thursday George Jones Blogging

 

     God knows I'd rather be writing about (eyeroll) National Pi Day or the new old white homophobe in Rome who got awarded the little white beanie but events this morning compel me to write about (if you'll pardon the pun) something hitting a lot closer to home.

     About 11 o'clock this morning, a motorist had a heart attack just as he was driving down our cross street, veered off the street and drove straight into our house. We live on the second floor and all I felt was a slight vibration and at first I thought it was Popeye jumping down from somewhere, although the tremor seemed a bit much for a ten pound cat to make. Then we saw and heard the emergency vehicles collect in front of our house.

     Mrs. JP threw on her coat and went down to investigate then came up a minute later to breathlessly tell me the entire house was being evacuated. If you look in the upper center of the lead picture, you'll note a twisted black mass. That's what remains of one of our neighbor's gas grill. Before the guy hit the house (just barely missing a utility pole and going up a slight incline which helped slow his velocity), he'd taken out her gas grill along with the propane tank beneath it. This, obviously, necessitated the local police department to evacuate our building, meaning we had to throw our coats on and stuff Popeye into a pet taxi, which didn't make him very happy.

     He'd also clipped the corner of the house, which further helped lessen the impact. All told, either the driver's insurance or my landlord's should cover the couple of thousand dollars worth of damage. It wasn't even a load-bearing wall that was hit.

     A review of my compulsory auto insurance tells me I'm insured for up to $250,000 of damage to someone else's property (without a deductible), meaning the driver would've been legally mandated to carry at least as much. The damages, obviously, will be well, well below the quarter million dollar threshold.

     I did a quick investigation after all the emergency personnel had left and if you look at the bottom of the lead photo, you'll see the tire marks left, presumably, by the driver. The poor guy never had the chance to even tap his brakes, to judge by the tracks. All in all, it could've been much worse and no one else was hurt. I just hope the guy pulls through.