Week 1: Salvaging continues, Day 2

Salvaging continued for the second day. Machinery was top priority for day 1, so now the task was to remove everything else that looked like it was worth saving. Here is a view down to the shop floor from the office level where you can see how much has been cleared away.

Another view of the shop, with all of the machinery removed.

It is pretty obvious to say that the office level received a heavy blow (no pun intended)! The amazing thing is that a lot of our important paperwork and office equipment was saved. Things were looking quite the worse for wear as we went up to remove the computers, desks, chairs, etc.

The one sad victim of the tornado was our reference library.  Much of it was destroyed by water damage. Thomas had some wonderful old irreplaceable German reference books on furniture and cabinet making, handed down to him by his architect father, that have been plagued with mould and are beyond repair. It will be a sad day seeing these thrown away. 

A happier story in the office, and one that I find quite incredible, is that all of our computers survived, even after being out in the rain for 2 days. There was one monitor that was smashed, but all the other units were taken from the building in one piece. One of our computer towers, a Mac G5, fell from the 2nd floor to the ground, was left in the rain, and when we pulled it out, we plugged it in and it fired up right away. We were very impressed! You can see the computer as we found it, buried in the debris, circled in blue.

On day 2, the building inspector said that some of the remaining walls would need to be taken down, in order to make the building site more secure. So, in came a couple of high-hoes that worked in tandem to knock down the back walls of the shop. The ease at which the drivers move these enormous beasts is like watching some strangely choreographed ballet.

You can see how one of the buckets is supporting part of a wall (in the centre), while the other machine tears down the section where the overhead door was located.

The skilled operators managed to pull the walls outwards so everything that remained inside the perimeter was left unscathed by the demolition.

And here we are, the motley salvage crew from Day 2, all looking the part in hardhats and safety gear. Back Row (l to r): Dave, Milan, Jim and Thomas. Front Row (l to r): Ann-Marie, Richard, Martin and Robin (that's me).