Dunsmuir Hardware

The traditional hardware store of Dunsmuir - California's historic railroad town. Founded by Dunsmuir's first mayor - Alexander Levy - in 1894 and continuing today as a full service TRUE VALUE hardware store. This blog is simply intended to be a running commentary on operating a century old small town hardware store. Also please check our our website at www.dunsmuirhardware.com

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Location: Dunsmuir, California

Thursday, January 22, 2015

HOW THINGS CAN CHANGE IN AN INSTANT

January 9, 2015.  Minding my own business - doing my normal mundane stuff - a brisk Friday afternoon at the hardware store - when all hell broke loose.  Incredible noise and a mind boggling sight as a car came crashing through the front of our store.  My mind kicked into slow motion (I'm told that this is a reaction to a sudden adrenelin boost).  The car came drifting past me so close that I could have touched it but I would have had to reach up to do that - it was airborne!  Debris - broken glass - pieces of masonry - wood and metal - flying in every direction.  My brain is saying "what the hell is a car doing in my store?"  Then the car stopped - 50ft into the center of the store - and life clicked into real time again.  I looked for the lady I had just been talking with, right in the path of the car, and she wasn't there!  I honestly can't express the feeling I had as the realization hit me that she was under the car and I knew she was dead !  I climbed over piles of debris to get to the car, which was still running, braced up against our now demolished heavy oak check-out counter.  She wasn't there!  A movement caught my eye and I realized she was right next to me - buried under glass and metal and wood fragments that I dug through to get to her.

EMTs and CHPs and Firefighters converged.  The lady under the debris was bruised and battered but not seriously hurt and nobody else was injured either.  The driver of the car - an elderly lady who I'm told should not have been driving - had a small cut on her hand.  Miraculous?  I think so!  Nobody died.  Nobody was seriously hurt.  How such a sudden violent thing could happen, mid-day in the center of the store where there are always people in the path is almost unbelievable.

Our store is closed.  We're guessing six weeks to two months before we'll be able to open.  Our store front with our beautiful heavy wood and glass doors with brass trim is demolished.  The doors are gone.  The large glass windows are gone.  There is a path of destruction that ended at our heavy oak check-out counter - it's demolished - littered with shattered merchandise displays,  A lot of inventory was destroyed.  Our point-of-sale computer is dead, along with printers and scanners.  Our fish and game computer used for license sales is dead.   There is broken glass all over the store from the front windows and from the glassware display the car crashed through.  It's as if a bomb went off.  Our back office computer was compromised with the sudden and violent disruption of connections between it and the point-of-sale, but we've been able to get it back up with the help of our computer support people.  That means we didn't loose data but we can't process sales.

The seemingly slow process of dealing with insurance - ours as well as the driver's - has begun and is moving ahead.  We're well insured (should be for as much as we pay for our coverage) so aren't worried about that but the red tape gets a bit tangled up.  Many folks ask us what we'll be doing with all our time off while repairs take place.  Ha!  Quite the contrary!  We'll be here endlessly dealing with insurance, claims, contractors, computer people, and all that.  To say nothing of trying to make sense out of the shambles that our store is in right now.  Sorting destroyed stuff from undamaged stuff and trying to figure out how we'll inventory it all to calculate our loss and file our claim.  It will all work out - somehow.

The picture posted here was taken just minutes after the crash and the haze in the air is from the tires on the car which were still spinning and smoking for a time while the driver still had her foot in the gas.  Emergency people were just arriving.  Our lives had just changed.