Roofers Race the Rain : Weather: Crews work at a harried pace to plug leaks before another storm hits. Homeowners who put off repairs because of the drought and simple neglect are scrambling for help.

Now that the torrential rains have stopped, a new storm of activity has begun in the South Bay.

Roofers and pothole crews are working double-time to patch, plug and replace what the harsh hammering of rain and sharp gusts of wind pried loose. They work at a frantic pace, trying to finish before a new storm starts the process all over again.

“Everybody wants us a week ago,” said Cathy Sanders, office manager for Collins Brothers Roofing in Torrance. “During the summer and the drought, the sun baked the oils out of the roofs, and now all of a sudden everything is dried out and cracked and leaky. Hey, it’s real good for us, but I feel sorry for all those people out there with their buckets under their drips.”

Usually, the leaks are minor, although the constant drip may seem major when it’s in your bedroom or kitchen. But for one Palos Verdes Estates family, that annoying little drip in the kitchen abruptly turned ferocious over the weekend.

“My husband and I were sitting in the living room watching TV, just minding our own business, when suddenly there was this big, huge crash,” homeowner Jan Palmer said. “It sounded like a bomb going off.”

Water leaking between the seams of the house’s original roof and one built over an addition had seeped into the kitchen ceiling’s insulation, slowly building up pressure, roofer Dan Collins explained later. The “bomb” the Palmers heard was roughly 250 pounds of saturated plaster crashing down onto their hardwood floor.

“Thank God no one was standing here when it decided to let go,” Palmer said, gazing up the 5-by-7-foot hole in her kitchen ceiling.

On Tuesday, Collins and two assistants, who earlier had anchored a tarp over the hole, took advantage of the good weather and began to repair the damage.

“We’re being inundated with calls,” Collins said. “I can already tell we’ll be swamped with business through the entire summer.”

Experts say that stricken homeowners will shell out serious cash for repairs that roofers blamed on years of neglect during the drought and on a onetime building boom that bred fly-by-night contractors and shoddy work.

“If you don’t see it, you don’t pay any attention. And the roof’s the last place you see it,” said Doug Mueller, sales manager for Permanent Roof Co. in West Los Angeles. “People cheaped out, and now they’re paying for it.”

Impatient calls to roofing companies tripled and quadrupled in the rainy weeks after Christmas from bucket-juggling homeowners whose roofs simply could no longer withstand the downpours. Most roofers were reporting at least a week’s backlog of business; in emergency cases, they were able to patch a leak with plastic, then hope for dry weather to allow them to do the job right.

At $2,000 to $3,000 to fix a roof and up to $10,000 or more for a full-scale replacement, the storms may spell a roofing contractor’s bonanza. That’s also good news for the scores of hourly workers who had to sit at home for weeks waiting for good weather.

Contractors said that most flat roofs should be inspected yearly and pitched roofs every other year. Most flat and shingle roofs, which bake and crack in the sun, are built to last 15 years; tile roofs can last 50 years.

Tire and alignment shops, reaping the repair work of one of the worst pothole seasons on record, expect 1993 to be just as busy for them.

“I’ve had a string of cars that were just a couple of days old that had run into potholes and ruined the rims and tires,” said John McCandliss, a salesman at Discount Tire Centers in Torrance. “I’ve noticed the repair trucks going down the road over and over, trying to patch (the potholes), so at least they’re making an effort.”

That effort won’t accomplish much until the rain lets up for more than a week, street maintenance crews say. Until then, crews can only shovel cold asphalt mix into a pothole, pack it down and hope it stays fixed through the next storm.

“We’re just trying to keep up with them right now,” said Hector Molina, street maintenance administrator for Torrance, which has six crews working full time patching potholes. “They start at one end of town and travel to the other end, and then they turn around and travel the other way on the other side. That’s all we can do until these storms are all over . . . and we can figure out where we have to rip out and replace whole stretches of street.”

It will also be some time before officials on the Palos Verdes Peninsula know how badly the heavy rains have affected a local landslide.

They already are certain of one thing: The 274-acre Portuguese Bend slide will speed up some. It’s just a question of when and how much. Past rains have taken at least two weeks to seep in far enough to affect the old, slow-moving slide.

City geologist Perry Ehlig said the change depends on how much water seeps far enough underground to lubricate the slippery clay deposits that act like a greased slide under the heavy masses of topsoil and rock.

The massive slide, triggered decades ago by road construction high up on the steep slopes, has damaged or destroyed dozens of homes in the past 35 years. Before the latest storms, parts of the slide had been moving as much as 14 feet each year, Ehlig said. There are no homes left on these faster-moving sections, some of which moved 700 feet before crumbling into the sea.

“We expect that those parts of the slide seaward from Palos Verdes Drive South will accelerate, and we’ll have some problems above the road too,” Ehlig said. “Things are in pretty bad shape in there.”

The adjacent Abalone Cove slide probably will not speed up at all, he said. Efforts to stabilize that area and protect homes there have been successful.

Times staff writers Ron Taylor and Ken Ellingwood contributed to this report.

How to Avoid Roof Repair Scams

Homeowners desperately seeking a roofer who is not booked solid are perfect prey for disreputable contractors.

“The rain will bring out all kinds of cons and scam artists,” said Howard Randol of San Gabriel-based Randol Roofing and Construction. Reliable roofers and consumer specialists offer the following tips to avoid making a bad situation worse:

* Obtain the roofing contractor’s license number and verify that it is in good standing by contacting the Contractor’s State Licensing Board at (800) 321-2752. A C-39 number designates a roofing license.

* Get several estimates.

* As with any major home construction project, ask for references--and check them out. Talk to previous customers and, if possible, view the work done.

* Be wary of roofers who require large down payments before they start any work.

* Be cautious of roofers who do not have a contractor’s license or insurance and solicit door-to-door promising cheap prices.

* For referrals or to get answers to any other questions, contact the Roofing Contractors Assn. of Southern California in El Monte at (818) 579-1276.