The Leaky Roof Circuit : String of Rainstorms Is Inundating Roofers With Work

Stormy weather had unloaded on homeowner Efren Meza before the roofers could finish their work. So on Wednesday, the workers were struggling to wrap his house in plastic before Meza rained wrath all over them.

But the same winds that were blowing a new storm toward the South-Central Los Angeles neighborhood were causing the huge blue tarps to billow wildly as the crew tried to nail them to Meza’s bare plywood roof. Fortunately, from his front yard, Meza was proving unflappable.

Buckets were lined up at the ready inside his 75-year-old clapboard home on 27th Street. So was a supply of mops and towels.

“The old roof came off last Saturday, when the weather was OK,” Meza shrugged. “We’re having a drought--who thought it would rain? All we could do last night was put out buckets to catch the leaks.”

Across the Los Angeles Basin, people were discovering after five dry winters that they live beneath leaky roofs. And they were hitting the ceiling.

“The water came with a whoosh ,” said Boyle Heights resident Tony Campos as he stood on the second-floor balcony of his Evergreen Avenue home. “I hope they’re coming at 3 (o’clock) to fix it.”

From the balcony, Campos had a view of downtown Los Angeles--and of dark storm clouds moving in from the west. Above his head, chunks of loose roofing flapped in the wind. Toward the back of the house, strips of clear plastic had been nailed down to patch earlier leaks.

In Alhambra, Huon Lee stepped over piles of discarded roofing shingles outside his Olive Avenue triplex as he surveyed the plastic tarp that his landlord had stretched over his roof.

The apartment’s real re-roofing job had been put on hold until sunny weather returns. Stacks of replacement shingles were lined up in the driveway; black plastic trash can liners covered the unopened shingle packages to protect them from the rain.

“That fixed it,” Lee said of the tarp. “Last night there were no more leaks. But before that, we got wet.”

Roofing contractors reported Wednesday that the storm has inundated them with more work than they can handle.

“Everybody has found out at the same time that they have a leak,” said Ron Gregory, a roofing contractor from Downey.

Los Angeles roofing company project manager John Haley said there is little that can be done to plug leaks when it’s raining, unless something like a clogged drain is the problem.

“A leak can be 50 feet away from where it’s leaking inside,” Haley said. “Most people have known for years they had a bad roof. But because of the drought, it was livable.”

Haley said people who call for a new roof can expect to wait up to two months for roofing crews to become available. “All we’re doing now is running around trying to put out fires,” he said, adding that the emergencies included repairing the skylights at the Lakewood Center shopping mall that were blown out by high winds Tuesday.

In Santa Monica, roofing company co-owner Randy Haskins answered 75 service calls on Wednesday. Two weeks ago, his telephone might have rung twice a day, he said. The rains have led him to rehire 12 roofers that he laid off last year.

“It hasn’t rained hard in years and it’s all coming home to roost,” Haskins said. “People call in a panic saying their ceiling’s falling in.

“A lady in Westwood who had a bad leak had to have the Fire Department make a little ceiling out of plastic for her in her kitchen. They made it so it drains into her sink.”

Haskins said his 20 employees won’t be starting new roofing projects until the current stormy weather ends.

But in Long Beach, masonry contractor Larry Andre was loading his pickup truck with $650 worth of tar paper and new shingles in preparation for starting a do-it-yourself re-roofing job at his own home today.

“With the rain, I can’t do any masonry work so I may as well work on my roof,” he said. “The city said I can put a new roof right on top of my old one, so I won’t have to strip everything down.”

Roofing supply company assistant manager Carlos Hernandez supplied Andre with a special knife for cutting the asphalt shingles. And an instruction sheet.

“We’re hearing stories about disasters where roofs were taken off and then the rains came,” Hernandez said. “People are calling with horror stories about leaks.”

One woman’s home was leaking so much that her exterior walls were filling up with water, he said. “She had to drill holes at the bottom to let the water drain out.”