During the Father’s Day storm in 2023, a massive, 100-year-old tree crashed through Mike Carr’s home in midtown Tulsa, leaving a gaping hole in the ceiling.
“It was surreal. I had a panic attack when I saw pieces hanging through my ceiling,” Mike said.
Burggraf Disaster Restoration stepped in, guiding Mike through a 10-month rebuild and transforming a traumatic loss into a restored home better than before.
“They put me at ease and took care of everything.”
Mike’s home after the storm.
What happened to your home, and how did you discover the damage?
It was the Father’s Day storm in June 2023, with those straight-line winds. It was about midnight.
My daughter was home from college that weekend, so when the sirens went off, I got up to make sure she got up. I thought it was going to be a tornado warning.
As I walked through the kitchen, the electricity went out. I walked through the living room, and as I turned a corner, it sounded like a train hit the house.
I looked up and it looked like it was snowing, because the insulation was coming down, and I could see the stars in the sky.
A 100-year-old tree in the backyard was picked up by the root and dropped on the center of the house. It knocked off the chimney, and the trunk of the tree broke in the house and went through the attic, and dropped the ceiling throughout the whole house.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt.
What were you thinking and feeling at that moment?
It was surreal.
It was dark, so I couldn’t really see how bad it was at the time. And in that instant, I couldn’t really fathom what exactly had happened, because all I heard was a loud bang, the house shook a little bit, and then I looked up and I could see pieces hanging from the ceiling.
And I thought, “Okay, that can’t be good.”
I started to have a panic attack. I couldn’t stand up straight and I was breathing hard. My daughter pulled me to safety and called an ambulance.
I thought they would just make sure I was okay and then we’d go to bed and deal with it in the morning.
But the fire department showed up while they were there and the guys said, “We’ve never seen anything like this. You can’t stay here.”
I stayed the night with a friend who lived about half a mile away, and we went back over there in the daylight. And it was just shocking to see what had happened.
How did you connect with Burggraf, and why did you choose them?
I’d heard of Burggraf because their main office is not far from where I live, and their trucks are pretty visible around town.
I’m an attorney, and I have several clients that are insurance companies. One guy I worked with gave me Burggraf’s name, and said they could help me out with getting the tree off my house. And then a friend of mine who’s a real estate agent gave me the same name at the same time.
I thought that was probably a good sign, and I called them. They took care of everything after that.
Mike’s home during repairs.
What was Burggraf’s plan for recovery, and how long did it take?
I was out of my home for 10 months. The insurance company put me up in a rent house a few miles away. I lived out of a suitcase, which was pretty much all I had left, while they repaired my home.
As for the process, they were out there immediately, just the insurance company and Burggraf. It took them three days–a crew of five guys–to get the tree off the house. It was a huge tree. I had them cut a ring off the base of the tree so I could keep it in the garage. I’m going to try to make a table out of it at some point.
Originally, the guy who came out from the insurance company said it might be about four months. But then they quickly found out that that wasn’t gonna be near enough time. Mainly because there was a lot of other damage in the area, and a lot of people, contractors and such, were busy.
Painting the exterior.
But it was done in a pretty orderly fashion. They got started on it right away with the demo. They had to strip the house down to the studs. They completely replaced the HVAC, completely replaced the wiring, the plumbing, all the drywall. I mean, the whole house was redone.
I was assigned a project manager, Bill, who did a great job. He was very communicative, informative, very easy to get a hold of and very willing to help. And I was trying to be as helpful as I could to make sure that nobody was ever waiting on me to get approval for anything or to deal with the insurance company or to deal with the mortgage company or whatever.
So it was a team effort.
How did Burggraf help you avoid bad outcomes?
They were very helpful with the estimate. The insurance company used Burggraf’s estimate. They didn’t get their own because the people at the insurance company knew the folks at Burggraf, had worked with them before, and were very trusting of them.
And Bill was really good about saying, “Hey, we can either replace the chimney or we can put this in at a different price. And then we can have this in the kitchen.” He was very conscious of the budget, conscious of the numbers and the plan.
Then they helped at the end with the final stuff with regard to plumbing and the water heater and things that might have been a little bit harder to get. They were able to push all that through.
I really didn’t have to deal with the insurance company that much. They took care of pretty much all of that.
Mike’s restored kitchen.
How did you feel walking into your restored home after 10 months?
It was surreal. It took several months for me to actually kind of look around
and be like, “Wow, this is incredible.”
Because it was just such a traumatic experience. Nobody was hurt, but I still watched as everything I owned was just soaked in water and they were shoveling it in a dumpster.
At first they were talking that they might have to just tear my house down. I’d have to move. And I thought, well, I don’t want to. I love that house and I love the neighborhood. I didn’t want to move.
I remember asking Chuck and Bill, “Can you fix my house?”
And Chuck put his hand on my shoulder and he said, “Mike, we can fix anything.”
And that made me feel better just immediately, that somebody was actually gonna try to fix it. And they did. They fixed it.
And it’s obviously way better than it was before, ’cause it’s all new and it’s all repaired. It’s really, really nice. They did a great job.
Why would you recommend Burggraf to others?
I’m an attorney and I deal with clients like this all the time, and I didn’t even know what to do. So I could imagine if you had no experience with the insurance industry or how this works, it would really be difficult and it would really be confusing.
Burggraf put me at ease right away. They were able to explain things in plain terms that made sense. And they were constantly on the scene. I never had to go find them. I never had to hunt anybody down to ask a question I might’ve had.
They were very hands-on, which I appreciated.
My favorite part of it is that Bill called me one day, just kind of joking around, to let me know that they had found a possum in my house while they were repairing.
And I kind of texted him back and said, “Bill, those things freak me out. If you can get that out of there, that’d be great.”
Thirty minutes later, he sends me a picture of himself holding that possum in his hand because he went out there to go get it himself.
I thought it was really funny. I actually had that picture framed and I gave it to him after we were done with the project.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I just think they’re all great. Everybody in the office is super nice and easy to deal with.
It’s a great local company, and they really care about the folks that they’re helping.
Water Damage? Storm Damage? Burggraf Can Help
Call us at 918-584-3737 and we’ll help you rebuild, good as new.