We flew  to Scottsdale on Thursday. It wasn't too bad coming in, just a little bumpy, but there was  a  down pour of continuous rain once  we were on the ground. Our friend, Art Swanson, was driving over from the Palm Springs area to go with me to the car auctions this weekend. When he arrived, he looked like someone who had faced  death and survived. Highway 10 from California, he  said, was just plain awful. He went through high winds that moved his car (and blew over  several semi trucks) continuous rain and water on the highway. He was exhausted.

That night on the news there was a tornado  warning for  Scottsdale. It was predicted that it would touch down in the area of the local airport. The  rain was continuous all night with high gusty winds  that rattled the  house. The next morning we were trying to evaluate whether Art should try to  escape back to California, spend the night or go to the auctions. It  turned  out the tornado did not cause damage, but the rain was continuing. We decided to take a chance and go to the auctions.

The news reported that this  was the  worst storm to hit this area in seventeen years. The governor declared an  emergency. The town of Wenden, about 110 miles West of Phoenix  was evacuated due to flooding. winds of eighty miles an hour  had occurred during the night in some  areas. Flooding and flash flooding warnings were posted. Several interstate  highways  were simply closed. Power outages were common. Even the main highway, Loop 101, was shut down. The airport was forced to close operations for a time. Semi trucks had blown over and the snow fall in the Flagstaff area set records with three feet of  fresh snow. Roads  were submerged in the Phoenix and other areas. In nearby Cave  Creek, a large  house had bank washed out below a part of it as the flood waters roared down a wash and it was teetering on falling into the wash. There were record rain falls everywhere and  here in Scottsdale where the average is  one  inch of rain in January, there was some four inches in a matter of a day  or two.

In spite of it all we decided to go to two auctions and call it quits. The two were the Barrett Jackson and the Russo Steele car auctions. Barrett has no reserve on the cars. Whatever is bid is what it sells for, but Russo has reserves on all the cars so if the bid does not exceed the minimum price placed  on the car by the owner it is not sold. As a result, Russo usually has the most expensive classic cars.

The tent structure for Barrett Jackson is the largest tent in the world and is probably visible from space. It's between 1/4 and 1/3 mile long and about 100  feet  wide. Aluminum trusses hold it all up with huge supporting structures and a very high ceiling. Outside are vendor and staging tent areas over a huge area. The auction lasts five days and some 1000 cars are expected to be sold. Inside the main tent is a  gaudy Las Vegas like atmosphere with all kinds of vendors selling everything and in some  cases things 
not even related to cars. Large neon automobile signs are lit and  displayed. People are walking  everywhere. We walked the entire length and then turned and walked back on the other side. I've never seen so many things I never want to  own. There  were a very large  number of Chevrolet's for sale and not many classic cars. The few cars we saw auctioned  went  for between twenty and thirty thousand. Car owners lost money on those sales.

After that we  headed for Russo Steele where I was looking forward to seeing the really expensive classic cars. On the way we stopped to see a Bugatti parked next to a Lamborghini automobile. The Bugatti price was $1.5 million and  had 1000 horsepower engine. Not good for driving  around Gig Harbor.

When we  got to Russo Steele the road was blocked and there were police who turned us away. It turned  out that the night before the high winds had brought down the tent over all the expensive cars and the supporting poles, as big as  telephone poles, had fallen across the cars. About  6:15 that night  the winds picked up and the tent began moving. The auction owners ordered everyone out and owners stood in the rain watching the tent flap and then fall. Some owners had tried to get their cars out but had to run  when one  end of the tent lifted up, allowing the tent poles to fall down on cars. The shredded tent began flapping around in the wind causing  more damage. Many of the convertibles had their tops down so they filled with water. There was  extensive damage to the cars  estimated  to exceed $1.5 million. One of the classic cars to be auctioned was a Tucker convertible that had  drawn a  lot of  publicity. It was under a tent that was destroyed, but sustained only minor damage to one fender.

After we got back to the house, Art wisely decided to get out of Dodge as quickly as he  could and headed  home. He reported arriving safely in much better conditions then the way over.

So that is my report from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.