As I was pulling into the parking lot at work this morning, I noticed that one of the several large windows around the building was completely covered in plywood. My first thought was that the office had been broken in to, and was relieved to know my laptop was in my trunk. However, once I walked in, I could see that the damage was far more significant than a broken window. One of my co-workers was surveying the damage as I walked in, and he gave me the details.
A vehicle drove into our office building at 3:00AM Saturday morning! Our office is at a T-intersection, if you don’t turn for the T, you drive into our parking lot…or the building if you still fail to stop!
This email was in my inbox this morning:
Hi all,
Very VERY early this morning we had some excitement at the office. An SUV tried to turn our office into a drive thru between Anne and my offices. Needless to say it didn’t work out too well for the young driver nor our office. I’ve attached a couple of pictures.
Both windows were completely smashed out, braces bent, window ledges destroyed, walls moved, the front foundation where our windows were was reduced to pieces and many things from our offices (mostly mine) destroyed.
The building is sound and the office will be business as usual; going forward though there will be many interruptions I’m sure while we have contractors in to repair the damage. Due to the large amount of glass shards spewed everywhere it is important that everyone wear proper footwear at all times; while the rug was vacuumed several times over there are still some glass slivers to be found. Both windows have already been boarded up from the outside and we will have XXXX Security watching the building during non-office hours until they can secure the front a bit more permanently.
Denise
I am not exactly sure WHY the driver drove into the building – I heard two stories. The first story is that the driver fell asleep and just drove into the building. The second story is that he was following a friend, and wasn’t paying attention when his friend turned at the T intersection, and drove into the building. Apparently alcohol was not involved, and quite clearly, he was not paying attention, and was driving at a good clip, as you will see from the damage in the pictures below. The driver was not seriously hurt, and thankfully this happened at 3:00AM or Denise or Anne could have been seriously hurt or worse.
Here’s some pictures, in no particular order.
The bottom of the window frame, from the outside.
The smashed windows, from the outside. The window blinds were down.
The wall between the two offices, which was shoved forward by at least a foot I think (I didn't measure :))
The crack in the wall, where it broke as most of it shifted forward.
The mess.
The bent window frame and more mess.
More and more mess.
More mess.
The shifted wall again.
The mess in daylight.
I'm sure it will be some number of weeks or months before everything is fixed. The people from the affected offices have been given new "homes", and we continue with our usual business.
Thankfully no one was hurt, and this certainly made for some interesting 'water-cooler' talk!
And yes, we have people walking around in stocking feet regularly, so the admonishment to wear shoes is not out of line! :)
2 comments:
Crazy stuff! I can't say as I would enjoy working through the "rebuild", but I suppose it could be a pleasant distraction . . . I tend to think of renovation dust and dirt and mess . . . hopefully the cleanup will be quick. Looks like you can be very thankful no one was there!
How does that saying go again? It's so easy to destroy but much harder to build. I think your blog entries of that last few weeks prove this (the slow process of building the fence compared to the swift destruction of an office building).. hmmm... I think there's a sermon illustration there...
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