Auto-echtomy

The Automobile has been removed from the back wall of the garage, and the repairs of the garage have begun. All in all, it looks like everything is headed for a happy ending.

Here's a good picture showing the bracing to keep the roof from collapsing. The wall that the car drove through is a bearing wall that supports the garage roof, so this was important to do.

Here you can see the cables from the tow truck to the car. We are ready for extraction.

Here is the tank commander with her tank. She got the car back from the shop today, no major damage, just some dents and scrapes! The cracked windshield will be replaced on Friday.

Here is a picture of the hole after the car has been removed. Mom and I discussed that this would actually be a real nice place for a picture window...

The contractors (Greg McCue, McCue Construction, Missoula MT) quickly got the new wall framed in and sheeted. The electrician will be here Thursday to replace the outside light and the wall outlet.

And here's the outside, ready for the installation of siding.

When Brakes Fail...

I was just getting ready for bed, was in bed, actually, when I felt the whole house shake. Then my Mom yelled down the stairs to our basement bedroom that my daughter had driven though the back wall of the garage. Mrs Squirrel and I threw on some clothes and ran outside to see the nose of Mandy's car sticking through the back wall of the garage and a very shaken Mandy sitting in the driver's seat with an amusingly stunned look on her face.


The driveway is steeply sloped downhill from the street to the garage, and her brakes failed on the hill. As it would happen, she had already hit the button to open the garage door (although I imagine replacing the door would have been less expensive then rebuilding the back wall.) It's also a good thing that Mandy parks in the end slot, as the other two parking places back up on the laundry room, and if she'd driven through that wall, she'd have been parking her car inside the house.



There were no injuries, and the damage could have been a lot worse. We have to wait until we get a contractor to shore up the wall before we can tow the car out. Then we'll have to assess the damage to both. But God is good, and, ultimately, this is a minor incident and easily reparable. This is why we pay those insurance premiums each month, right?