The Sanctuary was hit by a tornado Tuesday night, July 28, 2009. Oklahoma had been experiencing unseasonable storms: large hail, lightning and torrential rain. From 10pm until midnight one of those storms rumbled through Newcastle. When the worst of the storm had passed, Linda was out in the rain, flashlight in hand to check on the monkeys and how much damage had been done.
The fence with a gate had blown over; an entire huge tree was uprooted from the ground, and half a tree was hanging over the care building. That was only a few feet from two of the primate houses. One of the metal buildings for storage was torn, twisted, and thrown across the fence about 40 feet into a neighbor's field. A tree went down and took a section of chain link fence with it. The electricity was out, so Linda turned the big generator on, and it ran from midnight until 7:00 Wednesday morning.
Luckily, all the monkeys were uncharacteristically quiet, but fine. No one had any damage to cages or housing. Thank goodness our damage was just to the fences and one storage building, and our monkey residents came through unscathed. Somebody was definitely looking out for us!
According to the insurance adjuster who came out Saturday morning, the damage is estimated to be well over $5000. We have a $1000 deductible and there will be a number of expenses that will not be covered by insurance. For example, the insurance company may only cover the security fence and not the metal storage building, and there is a depreciation factor on the fence.
It appears that it will take about $2500 to get us back to where we were financially prior to the storm. Please see the pictures below of the damage. We would greatly appreciate any donation that you can send to help cover the cost of this damage.
Join the Monkey of the Month Club!!! We would love for you to read about our monkeys and see more pictures and videos. See Louise, our Monkey of the Month, and please consider sending a gift in Louises name today!
