Posted on 11/19/2008 7:19:18 AM PST by Daffynition
CARLISLE — There's little undisputed in this story, the tale of the tipped trailer.
Frances Barton's single-wide, the one she had fully paid $5,000 for and was hoping to move to a little piece of land she was buying on a $250-a-month land contract, is now literally in pieces on Jim Gaunce's front lawn.
And, everyone agrees, that leaves some 12 people — four adults and eight children ranging from 3 months to 12 years — facing Thanksgiving with no place to live.
How, exactly, the mobile home came to this odd resting place is where the story gets complicated. On Friday, Barton hired a guy to put her house on a trailer and move it up U.S. 68 in Nicholas County. When the trailer broke down and the house blocked the highway for hours on end, the sheriff got involved.
Barton, and the extended web of friends and family who lived with her, claim authorities didn't give them time to clear out a house full of furniture, much less clothing and the things that can't be replaced such as pictures, favorite toys and baseball card collections.
Barton's boyfriend, Alan Gaunce, no relation to Jim, said somebody — he's not sure who — told him he'd be shot if he didn't get out of the trailer before it was toppled. Barton, a grandma at 35 with gold streaks in red hair, tearfully contends that Nicholas County Sheriff Dick Garrett "showed no respect for my home" when he ultimately ordered two tractors to ram the thing and set it on its side.
On the other hand, Garrett, a wiry chain-smoker who ran for re-election with the slogan of "More 'Dick' in 2006," maintains that anybody who thinks it's a fine plan to pay somebody $200 to move their 25-year-old home, all their belongings, and a passel of pets with a farm tractor can't exactly complain when things go wrong.
"I know I wouldn't pay somebody $200 to move my house and everything in it," said Garrett, noting that the group didn't have a required permit or escort. Basically, he said, he could have arrested the lot of them: Barton, her brood and the hauler. The charge, he said: "being ignorant."
To be fair, the partial closing of U.S. 68 for some nine hours on a Friday night is pretty major in Nicholas County, where Garrett Tuesday was reviewing a Mayberry-like constituent call concerning a thwarted attempt to snatch a fresh cherry pie from a kitchen.
He said he did all he could think of to salvage the mobile home, but had to get the road clear. "It's a federal highway," said Garrett, who 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.
"I'm sorry it happened," he said, "I really am."
But, asked what he would have done differently, Garrett said, "I'd have knocked it over sooner."
Barton spent more than an hour Tuesday standing and crying next to a 10-foot-high pile of wooden walls and pink insulation, sometimes cradling her daughter's doll, one starting to show signs of black mildew after sitting in the damp remnants of the house. Over and over, she said, "Everything is gone. I've lost everything. It's all I had."
Barton, who helps manage the mobile park where she lived, paid for her home with a settlement from an automobile accident. It's the first home she's owned by herself.
She said she thought the man she hired to move her home knew what he was doing. Chris "Pancake" Meyers told her, she said, that he had more than 13 years' experience in hauling things and that he had the proper permits and insurance for the move. (She didn't ask to see proof of insurance or a permit, she said. Meyers could not be reached for comment Tuesday by the Herald-Leader.)
About 1½ miles into the move, the tires popped off. Sheriff Garrett said he's heard that somebody warned the group the tires would be loose and they should stop the move. He said Barton insisted on going ahead.
And soon found herself in front of Jim Gaunce's house on U.S. 68. Garrett said over the course of the evening, he did everything he could think of to get the house unstuck so it could be salvaged. But, he said, several of the well-intentioned efforts did significant damage to the house. For example, 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.
Lee Roberts, owner of Roberts Heavy-Duty Towing in Lexington, said his company was called in to help. "We tried to pull the trailer back on the road but couldn't without tearing it to pieces."
When asked to push it off the road to clear the traffic flow, Roberts said he declined to do so.
That's when, Garrett said, he called on Meyers and another farmer with a tractor to tip the trailer.
He said he gave Barton and her friends and family at least two hours to get out what they needed and asked more than once if they had everything they wanted before he issued the order to push. Garrett said he didn't know how badly damaged the trailer might be, but thought he had no other choice.
Barton said she collapsed before the final destruction and was taken away by a friend, but Alan Gaunce said Garrett told him the cleanup was "all up to you, baby."
Garret said he has given Barton 10 days to clean up the mess. He's already talked to the county attorney about charges if the debris hasn't been removed. Even as looky-loos slowed while driving by the wrecked house and an increasing number of clumps of insulation littered Jim Gaunce's yard, Garrett said it's not the responsibility of the county to do the demolition or removal.
Without money, Barton said, she's relying on friends to dismantle and move the trash. At least two of the men working Tuesday said they took off time from their jobs on horse farms to help and are working with hammers, a sledge hammer and a chain saw. The Red Cross paid for a hotel room for a few days, but now Barton is on her own. The family, a mishmash of real kin and unofficially adopted kids, teens and young adults, are crammed into a smaller trailer while Barton tries to sort through it all.
Jim Gaunce, an amiable great-grandfather, watched most of it unfold from his rocker in a sunny living room with windows so spotless birds frequently thud into the glass while trying to fly through.
He's sympathetic to both sides and willing, he said, to be patient as the mess is cleaned up. He worries that the insulation might blow into nearby farms, get eaten by cattle and do some major internal organ damage, putting a dent in someone's livelihood.
But he knows one thing for sure. "Somebody," he said, sitting calmly as a chain saw roared, "is going to have to clean that thing up."
Jim Gaunce, an amiable great-grandfather, watched most of it unfold from his rocker in a sunny living room with windows so spotless birds frequently thud into the glass while trying to fly through.
It just adds another dimension to the tragedy. It's tragic enough that the trailer had to be destroyed, but the birds!!!
Check the bearings?!
The guy’s name is “Pancake” and he was towing the trailer with a farm tractor. He probably did not even know the trailer wheels HAD bearings.
Adding to list of Lurkers Life Rules: Never hire a man named "Pancake" to move ANYTHING, ANYWHERE, at ANYTIME.
L
Well, Clark, that's when the wheel fell of the single-wide.
This reminds me of a shaggy dog story I read about 40 years ago, about some follow moving a house through the middle of town. The story takes the form of correspondence between the fellow moving the house with the Farmer’s Friend Tractor Company, as he writes to get them to send him the big gear with 48 teeth that meshes with the little gear with 18 teeth...
It goes on an on about his problems, about how the house is stuck right in the middle of main street, and if he doesn’t get it moved soon, he is going to be a “blowed up sucker”.
I think, in the end, he gets a letter back saying that he needs to contact the Steel Elephant Tractor Company for the part, but they are, regretfully, out of business...
Funny story!
I like this guy. Stupidity should hurt. We'd have less of it.
HAHAHA! That’s as laid-back as you can get!
“Ayup. Didn’t have no durn phon to call on neither.”
This is pretty bad especially at this time of year. I can’t believe “more dick” couldn’t have been more accommodating or creative with a solution to help them.
Simply unbelievable...
According to the article, that option was attempted using professional equipment and a licensed, insured towing company - but that option ultimately did not work either.
She claims she lost a $5,000 home in her little poorly planned escapade - I wonder how much money her nine hour standoff with reality cost the people trapped behind her who were trying to get to work, deliver goods, etc.
Tens of thousands, at least.
The picture you posted - is that the Clinton library?
(I should have said the “third” picture you posted.)
Around here they’re called tooter, booger and punkin. It must be a regional thing.
A 35 year old grandmother, with 12 people living in a friggin trailer, who hires a guy named Pancake to mover her nasty piece of crap trailer?
CD, these people live on the other side of your state, or what? (Kidding, and ducking!)
I wonder how many 30-packs it will take before this whole mess is cleaned up.
Is that wiry chain-smokin' More Dick you referrin' too?
Lee Roberts, owner of Roberts Heavy-Duty Towing in Lexington, said his company was called in to help. "We tried to pull the trailer back on the road but couldn't without tearing it to pieces."
It appears he did. But at what point to you give up on the $5,000 home?
It would have likely cost more than the house was worth to fix this. I blame her and her alone for not doing this the proper way, and checking for proper permits, experience and common sense with respect to "Pancake."
I know Booker, Punkin and Tater. It’s funny how they can’t afford their mortgage on the trailer they live in, have a 1987 rusted-to-nothing toyota 4x4, haven’t bought any new clothes in a decade except the newest Realtree gear from Lenny’s, but have a brand new quad for hauling the deer out, and a new sled for winter transport so they can fish the lake.
I wouldn't have made the comments the sheriff made, but would have thought most of it.
OTOH, made a call on a lawyer trying to get in a girl's pants that borrowed his friend's speed boat to take the girl on a spin around the lake. The boat was in a raised slip with the drain plugs out. It made the first circle okay, but as you know, boats don't float too well for a long time with no drain plugs. Anyway, when we got the call, they're both standing dripping on the dock, him in a tuxedo and her in an evening gown (they'd left some big evening bash for a midnight drive around the lake) and all that's sticking out of the water are the little blinking red and green warning lights on the prow. We got our boat and tried to tow it, but the weight of the water made it too heavy, so we called a wrecker. The lawyer was desperate to get the boat out of the water before his friend, the owner, saw it. He told me, "If you can't figure it out, let me use your boat and I'll tow it out of the water." I told him, "Buddy, you already sunk one boat tonight. You're not getting mine."
I love it when stuff like this happens to lawyers.
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