I've been able to talk to some people back home since I initially posted this. It seems that the house is somehow even more damaged that I thought it was. A friend of mine and a neighbor of mine (who happens to be a dkos reader -- thanks Jett!) have been going through what's left of my office trying to salvage what's left of my computers. My nice big monitors are, of course, toast, and the computers themselves are pretty mangled and deformed, but there's still a possibility that I might be able to recover the hard drives. Of course, I'll first need a computer to put them in and check them out (since all my desktops are mangled). My cats are OK, although one of them, while he's been seen, hasn't come home yet. We think he's hiding in the bushes. Unfortunately, the 55 gallon fishtank in my office was apparently annilhilated (my landlord didn't know there had even been a fishtank in there.
My landlords, who are most excellent people, have offered to let us stay in the other side of our duplex since it happens to be vacant, but we aren't quite sure what we're going to do yet. A friend of ours thinks there may be some foundation issues from the truck hitting it and whatnot, and my wife is concerned about our daughter seeing the house she's lived in all her life totally destroyed. We'll see what happens.
Even with all this, the important thing is that our family is OK. I have this laptop at least, so I can still work. I'm also hoping that this guy is insured, and that maybe, just maybe, our losses might be covered by his insurance. Let this be a reminder to you all: get renter's insurance right now. Don't wait until you have to think that getting it would have been a really good idea.
That's about all I know right now. In a little bit, I'm catching my plane to SeaTac, and then before I know it, I'll get to see all this in person. Wish me luck.
Update [2006-6-11 17:41:23 by ct]: Just a real quick update. Just got back from LV, and stuff is strewn everywhere. As soon as I recover a little bit from only having two hours of sleep, I'm going to start going over stuff and inventorying it. To answer questions posted in the comments, no, we don't have renter's insurance, but we're going to get an attorney and look at our options for insurance/tort claims etc, so I don't think a fundraiser will be necessary. These guys managed to hit the most expensive room in the house, destroying several computers, monitors, various pieces of computer equipment, a fish tank, probably ruining a lot of books, and so on.
And with that, I'm going over to look at the damage again.
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