Winds Fan Business for Repairmen

The violent winds that felled trees and ripped shingles from roofs Wednesday weren’t all bad--if you’re a roofer or tree trimmer.

Business tripled Wednesday for some Orange County firms that specialize in repair work. And with more gusts forecast, they were gearing up for another big day today.

“We set a record Wednesday,” said Gina Ouderkirk, office manager for Stemmer’s Tree Service in Huntington Beach. “We took the most (requests for) estimates we have ever taken. We’ve been referring jobs to other tree services, and other tree services have been referring them to us. We’ve been going back and forth trying to keep up with all the emergency jobs.”

Demand for Repairs Up

The company provides 30 to 40 repair estimates in an average day, Ouderkirk said, but Wednesday the firm received about 100 requests for estimates and was able to take only 60 of those jobs.

“The phone has been ringing constantly. They started as soon as I got in the office at 7:30 a.m. (Wednesday) and continued throughout the day,” said Linda Evans of V & E Tree Service in Orange.

“Today (Thursday) we’re getting a lot of calls from people who maybe had a tree leaning and were worried because the winds are supposed to pick up again.”

Roofing companies were also busy. Several reported taking as many as 70 calls for estimates on Wednesday.

‘We’re Doing Our Best’

“About 90% of the calls we got were due to the windstorm,” said Karen Ferguson of Petronella Roofing in Costa Mesa. “We got a lot of calls from people saying their roof had been blown off or found in the driveway. We’re doing our best to respond to them.”

Business also picked up in many cities’ public works departments.

City maintenance crews in Santa Ana have been working overtime, and the city has hired private contractors to help clean up trees and limbs that have cluttered streets and sidewalks. Officials said the cleanup will take about two weeks.

“We’ve had probably a couple of hundred calls since the winds began Wednesday morning,” said Jess Standridge, street maintenance supervisor in charge of trees. “People called all day (Wednesday), and they are still calling.”

Felled Trees

In Huntington Beach, maintenance crews cleaned up trees and limbs at about 300 locations. Most of the debris was spotted during routine checks, but the crews also responded to about 75 calls from residents who had felled trees in their yards, said John Van Oeffelen, supervisor of tree and landscape maintenance for the city.

“We had quite a number of trees that were on private property,” he said. “If you had a tree in a front yard and it fell into the street, we would cut the part off that crosses the sidewalk and drag it back to your property. You would be responsible for having a private tree company come in and take care of it.”

Van Oeffelen said Wednesday’s windstorm was not as severe as some he has seen, but it was one of the most difficult to clean up after.

“We’ve had storms that knocked over large trees. These winds just knocked over tops and limbs so cleanup wasn’t so hard,” he said.

“The difficulty in this storm is that it was widespread. It hit all parts of the city at the same time, and we had damage in almost every section of the city.”