A bad situation all the way around....

[Bird]

I have a hard time to believe that they could not get this trailer off the road with 2 tractors !!!!!! But the machines where big enough to turn it over into the ditch !!!
Seems like a drastic solution to this problem....this Sheriff should, at the very least, cover the bill for the clean up........ the JERK

Seems incredible to me that anyone could blame the sheriff because some unbelievably ignorant people blocked a highway and he gave them 9 hours to get it unblocked. When you say the Sheriff should cover the bill, I assume you know that you really mean the taxpayers. Should the taxpayers be penalized because stupid people violated the law by putting something on the highway that was illegal to be there in the first place?

 

[john_bud]

Hey hey hey hey now Bird!

Quit confusing the issue with facts. You start giving us the facts and we can no longer keep our cherished emotional bias.

jb

 

[AJ Clark]

Hey Bird... I never said the Taxpayers should flip the bill....I said the Sheriff. and as for these people being "ignorant people".... maybe they are and maybe they aren't but Xmas is coming and this family is out in the cold. Maybe it wasn't much of a place to live but sounds like it was "HOME" to them........now it's a pile of trash along the side of the road.....just imagine standing along the highway when "Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane" decided the only way to get this trailer off the road was to push it over with 2 tractors !!!... not use a couple of heavy duty pulleys with some steel cable and use some mechanical advantage.......no, no, no let's just flip it into the ditch with a couple of tractors..... why didn't he just use his "six gun" to shoot it out of the way
I am not being difficult but this was someone's house for god's sake....... I am done now..

 

[Bird]

AJ, I can certainly feel sorry for them, but did you read all the article? Apparently they tried some other things that didn't work. But I'm willing to learn. What would you suggest that they should have done?

And of course we also have to keep in mind that news stories usually do not tell the whole story.

 

[jk96]

I think Flathead summed it up pretty well

poor people have poor ways.....

 

[AJ Clark]

I hear ya Bird, there has to be more to this story.... I just know my family had very little when I was young. For someone to decide to destroy this home, and that is what the sheriff did when he order then tractor operators to flip if, this close to Xmas and in the coldest part of the year.....and when he was asked what he would have done differently, he said flip it sooner.
I would not give 5 dollars of all the mobile home axles in the world. Just think about that axle being under a trailer with a large car or good size tractor meeting you on the highway at 60 mph when it fails... that is how innocent people die right there.
Come to think of it, the guy who was doing the towing should also carry his fair share of the blame.....you are responsible for what you are draging down the road..

 

[CurlyDave]

It is hard to fault Frances Barton on this one. She clearly has no idea of how to move a mobile home and didn't have any experience in the area.

Now, "Pancake" on the other hand did know that what he was doing was very risky, and is probably liable for the cost of the mobile, plus clean-up. I doubt he has insurance or enough cash to cover it though.

I wonder what "More Dick" would have done if that had been a car carrier with six $80k cars on it that broke down & blocked the highway? Would he have been as quick to push it into the ditch?

The unstated part of this whole story is that there are local companies that move mobile homes professionally who could have been called out. They would have been able to get out of this fix with no physical problem. I think the issue is that they would have wanted to be paid, probably up front, before doing a rescue. Probably would have cost more than either Pancake or Granny had on hand...

And, "More Dick" wasn't feeling very generous with the county's money.

 

[Bird]

There's just too much we don't know. We assume it was a "mobile home", but did you notice in the story it says "Barton hired a guy to put her house on a trailer" and the trailer broke down. Just what was under there, mobile home axles, a different trailer, or what, and what broke down? It does say that the tires popped off, but a trailer can be moved a short distance at least on the rims. Then it says "trying to push with one truck from behind while pulling from the front resulted in the hitch coming off and Barton's blue-walled bedroom being crushed." It also says that Sheriff "stood in the rain from roughly 4:30 p.m. Friday until 2 a.m. directing traffic with the rest of his force, a single deputy."

How many of you have stood out in the rain directing traffic? I have.

Of course I feel sorry for a family that had such a thing happen to them, but in carefully reading that article, I think that Sheriff did everything he could do with the resources available. Sounds to me like he was a very patient man.

 

[AJ Clark]

You hit the nail on the head CURLYDAVE !!!!! I thought many of the police cars had "Serve and Protect" on the side, not "Flip and Demolish".. I think it is hard to blame the poor owner when she probably has not had any experence towing or moving a large structure.......

Maybe the sheriff has been doing this job to long and lost the drive or forgot the reason he got into Law Enforcement. Serve and Protect.

Just very sad.. it is not easy being poor.

Bird.. I would imagine you have seen some crazy stuff running down the road. There is a "local yocal" runnin up and down the highway here with a trailer hauling junk cars....I know for a fact it has no suspension, not brakes and the frame is weak but the Town Cops just look the other way... if I ever hear of him being in an accident with that piece of junk, I will be the first one to call "FOUL".

Crazyest thing I have ever seen was in Afghanistan was small car like a toyota corola, loaded with rolls of pink insulation type stuff. It was on top, sticking out each windows and when we passed the car the driver had just enough room to drive.

 

[Bird]

I wonder what "More Dick" would have done if that had been a car carrier with six $80k cars on it that broke down & blocked the highway? Would he have been as quick to push it into the ditch?

Not a good analogy. That car carrier with that kind of cars (unless they were stolen) would have been a vehicle that the wrecker company could move without it coming apart.

And "quick to push it"???? After standing in the rain for 9 hours directing traffic while trying everything anyone could think of before pushing it? You're kiddin'.

There's just a couple of things that would have been different in the big city. First, there's no way they'd have let that pile of trash block a highway that long (yeah, I know . . . it was someone's home, but it was still a pile of trash). And secondly, they'd have called for a lowboy truck and dozer to push it up on the truck and hauled it off. And third, they'd have sent that lady a bill for the cost of the removal (never collect, but they'd have sent the bill anyway).