The most touching survey(s) you've undertaken

Wow!

It is rather amazing what memories we still have after many years. Meanwhile, we can't remember all sorts of things that we thought we would never forget.

The closest thing to your experience is what I call "The Dead Dog Survey". A very upset lady called in need of a survey to locate, exactly, where she had buried her long time pet dog, a rather large breed as I recall. She and her husband had purchased an oddly-shaped rural lot in a weird little subdivision a mile or so from the edge of the city. Ol' Fido went to the happy squirrel chasing grounds in the sky but there was a need to bury his remains. So, this lady and another woman wrapped him in a big blanket, drove to the rural lot, dug a large hole by hand and, all in all, had a very sad experience. Shortly after her arrival back home a county deputy appears at her door. A neighbor two lots away from her lot had witnessed the scene and decided this suspicious activity must be the temporary hiding of a stash of drugs. He called it in. The lady was forced to return to the grave site, dig up Ol' Fido and prove her story. The deputy was very apologetic until he received word that the guy who called it in had contacted the owner of the adjoining lot. The adjoiner showed up and was certain that the dog was buried on his property, not the dog owner's property. Remove it or prove it's on your property was the demand. The deputy agreed this seemed to be a reasonable request since neither owner was certain of that boundary line.

Ol' Fido is still there. But, another ten feet to the south and it would have been a different story.

Two come to mind for me:

1. A forensic survey to determine the ownership of a 36" fir tree that fell onto a cabin, cutting it in two and killing an 8-year-old girl in the process. I didn't get involved until a couple of years after the incident, and the cabin had been removed, so it wasn't a morbid scene, just sad circumstances. (The lot line went right through the best estimate of the tree's standing location, so the parties settled the case. But not before 2 surveyors, 2 attorneys, 2 registered foresters and a 2-person video crew had spent several days at the site.)

2. A topo survey of a cemetery. It was hard not to look at the born/died dates on the stones, and all the markers that had born/died dates within a few days, months or years of each other -- newborns to toddlers -- kind of choked me up.

Large wildland fire set by an arsonist. It burned up an RV with a man in it. The house fifty feet away was untouched. He was found in one of two melted RVs with his dog. We mapped a fairly large scene with a Lidar scanner, GNSS and total station plus the two origins.

He was a father...the family left a little makeshift memorial. The coroner took him away before we got there.

Another one involved two firefighters that drove a u-bed pickup off a steep hillside dirt road in heavy smoke resulting in their deaths.

Although I wouldn't consider it "touching"...we were contracted by the NTSB through the FAA in the mid eighties to map the debris field of a V tailed Bonanza that left Wiley Post AP on a warm May afternoon and headed SW attempting to make it over a line of developing thunderstorms. They were unsuccessful, the plane lost its structural integrity at about 10,000 ft. Burned in my brain are the 5 feet plus deep holes that a human body makes in a fresh cut hay field. A horrible way to go.

The most touching and heartfelt survey was attempting to locate a family gravesite (from the 1919 flu epidemic) because the area was to be developed. I spoke with the last surviving daughter of the landowner about a tenant farmer's family (wife and three children) that had died and the farmer had built a small plot for their graves. The area had grown wooded over the years. It was winter and although we were able to find a portion of the old house, the graves escaped us. The old lady remembered there were yellow daffodils surrounding the graves. Sure enough, as it warmed, what remained of the flowers (a 20x20 "L" of daffodils) bloomed in the spring and we were able to locate the gravesite.

This was the large (300+ acres) Edward's family land holding on the NE Corner of NE50th. & Lincoln in Oklahoma City, some very valuable property. The surviving 80+ year old Edward's daughter always insisted on greeting us and seeing us out of the gated property. On the day we were locating the graves I had heard some kids giggling and playing a little north of us where the woods met the bottom land. Hearing kids play is not an uncommon sound in the afternoons on warm spring days. I mentioned to Ms. Edwards as we left there were some kids playing near the pasture. She assured me there were no "real" kids. The tenant farmer's children (whose graves we had located) would play on a saw horse their father had built for them next to the pasture before their death. Ms. Edwards related to us we were not the only ones that had heard the children's noises, she had also. The old caretaker also told us he had heard them often over a forty year career.... creepy. Sweet, but creepy.

This was before the beginning of the survey but... We had a contract from the County to relocate an intersection (it had bad geometry). The County had had 6 months of public hearings and advertisements in the paper. As usual I called all the property owners in the area to obtain permission to survey. There was to be one house directly in the new alignment that would have to be removed. When I called the owner, a lady in her late 60's, she had heard nothing of the relocation and asked that I meet her on site. I showed her the sketch of the relocation on an aerial photograph and she broke down in tears. She and her husband had built the house in the 1950's, her children were born in that house, her husband and one son had died in that house and now the County was going to "take" it. I felt about as low as whale excrement. She understood that I was only the messenger, but that didn't stop the pain. When I got home that night my wife wanted to know why I was so down. When I told her she told me that at least the lady had someone who cared listening to her rather than a "bureaucrat". Out of the hundreds of contacts that I have made THAT is the one that sticks with me.

Andy

I've been in those shoes too, Andy. It has made me realize over the years that EVERY imminent domain taking has a victim. That doesn't make the taste in my mouth go away, but it keeps me aware of the human side of public infrastructure improvement. I can't understand why the human side of things aren't taken into consideration with design. I truly believe there is a way to both respect existing development and keep the lid on construction costs. But that would require the people in charge of design to use their noggins...and time and time again I've seen that to be an impossibility.

I was staking cl on one of our great "pay to ride" turnpikes about twenty years ago and ran into a similar situation. Mom and Pop had worked for years to build one helluva nice place. The route design ran east and west through the middle of the sections for about six straight miles. The older couple lost everything they had built. The route could've easily been curved to miss their place and easily returned to the alignment. In my opinion there would have been less dirt to move also (there was excess in that cut). When I did get a chance to ask the design engineer about it, he quipped, "Curves cost money."

I pray heartless dicks have a special place in hell.

I can't understand why the human side of things aren't taken into consideration with design. I truly believe there is a way to both respect existing development and keep the lid on construction costs. But that would require the people in charge of design to use their noggins...and time and time again I've seen that to be an impossibility.

That is so true, here also.
Whilst money drives most developments the way they go, it more often than not takes no or little extra to be sympathetic to those around and the land they are dealing with.
The outcomes would speak for themselves and people would start to be more trusting when development swings their way.
Plus - what better outcomes would we have now in terms of sensible design!

[USER=1123]@Andy Bruner[/USER] I grew up doing just that. Often , but not always was the front runner as we would do the investigative surveys. Then later come back and acquire their land. Often not easy.
Your wife's comments were true to the mark.

Being the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I remember a day in Chalmette, La after the storm.
I was a COE contractor and we went in after the storm and set b/l s for emergency levee construction for the levees that weren't there any more or as we would like to say "ain't dair no mo". After completion, we were tasked to capture HWM elevations. NGS had purged 90% or so of the local BMs because of subsidence. So geodetic networks had to be established to stay on task and complete HWM data for the COE/USGS flood studies. RTN was just getting in the starting blocks at this time so long static sits were performed. Eerie to be in alone in neighborhoods and if being in a ghost town. An Army captain that I met said the devastation was worse that he had seen in Kosovo.
I'm doing a session one day in this modest lower middle/working class area and I am surveying all of the debris scattered about by the flood waters.
On the front lawn of this house there is a curious juxtaposition of items. Old family photos in frames and la locket too, knic-knacs and bric a brac, whiskey bottle, stuffed animals, toys and dolls, sports items and awards etc etc etc etc that are all moldy and stained and rusting from the flood waters. I realized that it was almost a perfect collage of the effects of the storm and the total loss that was suffered by many... Tens of thousands times over.
I wish that I could have excavated a section and put it behind glass and place it in a gallery somewhere. I took
a picture but it did not have the power of the real collage that the storm had left on that grass.

I'm still mesmerized seeing images of the devastation, up close and personal would be a kick in the gut to me. I cried like a baby ten years ago as I watched the carnage unfold on the tv. No place is a good place for a CAT5 to hit the beach, but NOLA was the worst place it could have landed. Sometimes I still think that the rest of the population that sees it on tv CAN'T really comprehend the death and devastation that took place.

But on a good note, life carries on down there. Apparently tragedy can take lives and buildings, but thankfully it cannot take spirit.

I've never been in a hurricane but about 20 years ago a tropical storm "stalled" over south Georgia. 21 inches of rain in 24 hours, FEMA classified it as a 500 year storm event. Pictures, as awesome as they were, couldn't begin to do justice to the devastation. After visiting NOLA this summer and seeing the marks where the high water ended, I can't imagine what it must have been like "in person".

Andy

paden cash, post: 334321, member: 20 wrote: I'm still mesmerized seeing images of the devastation, up close and personal would be a kick in the gut to me. I cried like a baby ten years ago as I watched the carnage unfold on the tv. No place is a good place for a CAT5 to hit the beach, but NOLA was the worst place it could have landed. Sometimes I still think that the rest of the population that sees it on tv CAN'T really comprehend the death and devastation that took place.

But on a good note, life carries on down there. Apparently tragedy can take lives and buildings, but thankfully it cannot take spirit.

Here is a pretty good article covering the 10 year anniversary (a little raw in some spots):

Beyond the Breach

My "Most Touching" was also the strangest. A realtor was bugging an elderly woman to sell a couple of vacant lots that she owned; Nice lots, with water views, pricey lots for sure.

It turned out that the woman didn't want to sell because she had buried the remains of her husband and son on the lots and couldn't remember where. The husband had passed away in the late 70's shortly after the son had augured in Cape Cod Bay in his small plane.

I took the trusty metal detector and shovel and went to the site. I tried to imagine the conditions 20 years previous and decided that a small knoll under a oak tree looked like a restful spot; Bingo, the Metal d hummed and I started digging. Sure enough, there was a small piece of luggage, mostly rotted except for the hinges and clasps. Inside were two plastic bags of ashes.....

An elderly woman had lost her husband. He was buried in the cemetery on the hill. Not long after, two of the caretakers were overheard discussing the burial. One had said, "It was a tight fit but we jiggled him around and he fit in there." This got back to the poor grieving widow and a survey was undertaken to find out just how much room there was. We found the plot and probed with a bar to find the vault. We assured her that her late husband was not "jiggled around" to fin in there. "Plenty of room," we told her.

Not touching but unforgettable.

[I recall a survey in the early Nineties for a realignment of US 53 through a neighborhood in Duluth. The elderly gentleman was quite pleasant and full of great old stories as we surveyed the existing conditions and chatted with him as we went by his place. He was 92 and born in that well kept little bungalow. When it became apparent that proposed centerline fell just a few feet from the front porch, he took on another demeanor however. I don't blame him one bit, as I would have felt the same way. There were threats, and mention of his gun with a frail old voice and watery eyes.

His son calmed him down enough so that we could finish our work. Plans moved forward and he was sent to a Rest Home. After a few project delays, as that house sat empty, we learned that he had passed. He could have stayed in his home till the end, but politics won out. I can't help but believe that we killed that old boy.

plusballs, post: 334338, member: 9035 wrote: [I recall a survey in the early Nineties for a realignment of US 53 through a neighborhood in Duluth. The elderly gentleman was quite pleasant and full of great old stories as we surveyed the existing conditions and chatted with him as we went by his place. He was 92 and born in that well kept little bungalow. When it became apparent that proposed centerline fell just a few feet from the front porch, he took on another demeanor however. I don't blame him one bit, as I would have felt the same way. There were threats, and mention of his gun with a frail old voice and watery eyes.

His son calmed him down enough so that we could finish our work. Plans moved forward and he was sent to a Rest Home. After a few project delays, as that house sat empty, we learned that he had passed. He could have stayed in his home till the end, but politics won out. I can't help but believe that we killed that old boy.

I know what you are talking about.
In the 80‰Ûªs, I worked on a 3 man crew that traveled around Louisiana and Mississippi doing ALTA type surveys for Burger King sites. It was a slam bam operation. One survey assigned was in the University section of Lafayette, Louisiana but this one was a little different. It seems that this BK was built years ago without a drive-thru lane and a Taco Bell had opened on the adjacent corner with a drive-thru.
While doing the survey, I noticed because of the lot size that it was almost impossible to build the drive-thru without tearing down the existing BK. Next door was an old house that was owned by an old couple in their 70s. It was kept in immaculate condition with a splendid display of bushes and flowers that were well kept. They had a large variety of day lilies, irises, native bushes and ornamental trees plus beautiful azaleas, gardenias, ginger and jasmine. The old couple were tending to the yard when I was there and asked them about the garden and their situation. They were not happy to see me but were very nice to me and even offered me some bulbs that they were thing out that I asked about. They knew of BK‰Ûªs plans and had politely refused offers that were made to them. They were going to LIVE there until the end and no negotiations, lawyers, letters would change that. PERIOD. It seems BK had become very aggressive with them to change their mind but it was to no avail to them. Because of BK‰Ûªs tactics, they said that they would never sell to them. NEVER. I felt bad that these nice folks in their twilight days would never have any peace or quiet with a drive-thru lane existing 10 feet from their house. The noise and lights at all hours was unimaginable. I was in Lafayette a few years later and the driv-thu was built and they were still there.
Earlier this year, I was in Lafayette for the weekend and remembered this survey. I was sure that the couple were now long gone. So I passed by Johnson St at St. Mary and to my surprise the house was still there but it was in a rundown condition but still there. The beautiful natural landscaping was gone and I couldn‰Ûªt tell if it had a tenant. To add to the scene, McDonalds had built on the other side of their lot. The house was sandwiched between BK and McDonalds as sort of a neutral casualty in the fast food wars. I always felt a little dirty about protecting the public on that survey. I was happy to see that hey never sold to anyone.
Trying to link the street view here.

@30.214095,-92.0221545,3a,75y,338.42h,85.89t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smdGik36zm5k5CBsbAfMu5A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1?hl=en'">Street View

I once did a half price survey for someone. The surveyor for his neighbor used a plate in the highway that was a PI instead of the section corner, which was something like 20 feet difference. There was a doorway into a large metal shed near the boundary line. This mistake made the building where you couldn't use the door and he had stuff in the building. This guy had something like 3 open heart operations that he was "making payments" on. He couldn't afford a lawyer or my survey so I talked my boss into doing it for cheap. This guy had been in court and they were pressing him to settle even though he knew what the problem was. After my survey was completed the neighbor hired another surveyor to check my work and they agreed. This guys problem then went away. If only the first guy had done his job right.

This job taught me two things, the damage a poor survey can do and the importance of health insurance. This guy had all these operations and never had health insurance.

David Livingstone, post: 334408, member: 431 wrote: I once did a half price survey for someone...

I do pro bono (is that the right one?) work occasionally. I'm happy to be at a place in my career that if I see someone getting screwed over because of monetary constraints, I'm happy to help. The last one I "gave away" was almost a year ago. A fella operates a family dairy on 80 acres that just happens to be halfway into the city limits. Any conveyance (considered a $ubdivision by the Citiots of Norman) requires a stack of paper and a bunch of hoop-jumping. All he wanted to do was give his son 10 acres. We reached a amicable solution and I still get free eggs, cream and butter anytime I'm out that way!

Quite a few years ago, it was discovered that a pilot, who had contracted with several funeral homes to dispose of cremated remains, had been illegally dumping the remains on his own very rural and mountainous property for several years and falsely portraying that he had disposed of the remains according to final family wishes. This was discovered after piles of the remains were discovered by a hiker and his dog. A lawsuit ensued and to everyone's shock it was estimated that remains for 5,000 - 8,000 individuals were dumped on the property over the years. The court ordered the property to be held in perpetuity by the state cemetery authority and it was ordered that no improvements could be conducted on the multi-acre property or otherwise disturbed. Eventually, relatives of the deceased discovered where the property was located which is in an area of 5-10 acre rural residential home sites and it was never obvious where the property lines were in relation to the dirt paths crossing the property and the makeshift memorials. We were asked to assist the cemetery authority by determining the location of the property boundaries and installing carsonite posts so everyone knew to stay away from other private properties. Seeing the memorials change over time was definitely sad to see.

The only funny think about it...and true to form for surveyors...was that even though the location of remains were very obvious as evidenced by the makeshift memorials and just looking around on the ground, we didn't notice any remains the first time we visited the property because we were focused so much on recovering monuments. Next time we went out, we realized that we were focusing too much looking for rebar and pipes and never saw the millions of small bone fragments and ashen soil in the same general areas.

Working north of Lakeview Or. on a cadastral survey. On a walk back to the truck we came across an old down homestead house. We took a few minutes to look around. I found a small piece of china and kept it for a reminder. About 2 weeks later we ran into the ranch owner and I told him what we found. The ranchers jaw dropped and told a story from 10 years ago about hunting for cattle before winter set in. He rode by the house and was heading out when he heard "HELP", he turned around and searched but found nothing, he thought it was the wind, got 100 ft. away and knew he heard "HELP ME", he rode back and looked for 30 minutes and found nothing. Final he rode away, 100 ft away he definitely hears "HELP ME", he turns and sees a female ghost standing in the rubble of the homestead, he spurred his horse, never looking back. He was visible shuck relaying the story. The next day, luckily for me it was a bright sunny day, I got the crew working and drove over and walked into the homestead. I placed the china back and apologized for talking her china and said a pray for her. I still get the shivers telling this story.