Steele and Russo disaster

[enjenjo]

Any details? Looks like a bunch of cars damaged.

[tom36]

seen this?
 http://www.autoblog.com/2010/01/22/strong-winds-cause-russo-and-steele-auction-tents-to-collapse/
 
Tom...

[ACEMAN419]

http://www.azfamily.com/weather/Tents-collapse-at-luxury-car-auction-due-to-severe-storm-82320467.html  

how about this

[Crosley.In.AZ]

local  TV  station had one car owner on camera tape... they had to bleep him out several times.  Something about 50k  chevelle with tent poles on top of  the car.

Some of the tents blew out on to the freeway  and the DPS  closed   the freeway for a while

[phat46]

Wow, that's gonna be an insurance nightmare!

[Crosley.In.AZ]

Wow, that's gonna be an insurance nightmare!

yep....  I watched a news report from on-site of the Russo auction.  

Police would not allow car owners in to see thier cars.  Work crews were there trying to remove the debris off the cars  to secure the safety of the area , then allow the car  owners inside.

Spokesman  of the auction were trying to down play the damage to the cars .... it will be interesting and long to clean this natural disaster up  and the related insurance mess

[34ford]

http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/russo-and-steele-tent-collapse

[57larry]

what a mess, hurts to look at

[34ford]

not for the faint of heart

https://sites.google.com/a/allclassicsllc.com/www/home/2010-russo-and-steele-damages

[Crosley.In.AZ]

not for the faint of heart

https://sites.google.com/a/allclassicsllc.com/www/home/2010-russo-and-steele-damages

wow ....holy crap.  masssive damage.

I can not believe the extent of the bent metal on expensive cars

[enjenjo]

Some of those cars are going to be very expensive to fix. And they will no longer be "original", so they will be worth less.

[Crosley.In.AZ]

certainly decrease in values.

think about the glass damage and if the glass had original codes on them.

Some of the cars look like hammers were used on them...  

the Hemi convert with  the crushed A pillars

[jaybee]

I hear those clay bars do a pretty nice job.

Wow, that's really, really bad.

[Carnut]

Yeah, just can't comprehend how insurance can handle that situation.

Unless there was some sort of total release signed by each owner before the car got driven onto the lot, I imagine R-S is gonna be in court cases for a long long time.

Maybe 'act of god' will handle it, but I imagine the lawers are really circling the place.

[39deluxe]

It was quite a mess. I was in the tents taking pictures and looking at cars just an hour before the tents went down. They were trying to drive in more stakes to shore up the ones that were loosening. Being sand and totally saturated from all the rain it was a lost cause. They came through and moved everyone to the main auction tent except for the owners if they wanted to stay. I missed taking photos of many cars due to this. The after photos were not nearly as nice.

Except for the flaps at the entrance and exit whipping in the wind you didn't even know what was going on outside. The main tent was very stable. Right after they served the buffet they made the announcement that everyone had to evacuate the property. This was a case when being early in line to eat worked out. The exit was on the opposite side of the main tent from the car tents and I didn't even know the tents were down until I heard it on the radio in the car. The tent poles whipped around like big clubs and just beat the heck out of anything they hit. If you saw the video on You Tube of the tents coming apart you can see the poles whipping.

I sat in the lot for awhile to let traffic clear and allow all of the emergency vehicles come in before I headed out. I took Scottsdale south until I hit the 202 to stay clear of the mess on the 101. It was a difficult drive south to Queen Creek where my son lives. The wind would help you change lanes without warning whether you wanted to or not.


Tom