When we moved back to the Southwest (we live in Las Vegas) from Oregon last year, I realized that there was an increased risk of earthquakes. But tornados?

We were not at home yesterday aftn when it occurred, but neighbors described it as a large dust devil or a mini-tornado. They both saw and heard it coming. One neighbor, who only heard it, thought it was a plane about to crash. Fortunately, no one was hurt from the incident.

It touched down on the house across the street from us, tearing off his roof tiles, pulling a tree out of the ground, knocking outdoor furniture over. The roof tiles, the large concrete-type, slammed into our house. The good news is that we have no windows on that side of the house. The bad news is that now we have openings started almost large enough to put in windows.

Neighbors said you couldn't even drive up our cul-de-sac because of all the debris in the street. The developer sent out a crew and they spent about 3 hours, I was told, cleaning up the street and the yards.

Our house is only a year old. We have gotten a few errant golf balls (golf course is across the street, behind the houses) hit our house. My husband has been able to patch those easily enough. These holes in the side of the house are way, way too large to patch. Also, the roof tiles badly dented the privacy screen on our wrought iron fence (it's a heavy metal mesh screen)in the backyard.

In 40 years of owning houses or driving a car, I've only ever had one insurance claim. That was the Sylmar earthquake of 1971. I don't know anything about insurance, but someone told me that I should turn it in to the neighbor's insurance company. It was his roof tiles that were ripped off of his house and sent flying into our house. (The neighbors house is a mess -- his roof is partially destroyed -- and he's back in Minnesota right now.) I need to call my agent this morning and find out how to handle this.

Barbara