Then the roof fell in

GENERALLY speaking, it’s not a good thing to have your home featured on the evening news. My 680-square-foot cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains attained that dubious honor last winter when 7 feet of snow caved the roof in, bringing the walls tumbling down with it.

That was March 1, 2005. Now it’s late December and little has changed in my tiny corner of the mountain except that I’ve learned some valuable lessons about the art of patience in dealing with insurance companies and the construction industry.

Green Valley Lake, population 300, is midway between Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear. It isn’t as grand as its mountaintop neighbors, but the 20-acre lake is a scenic little gem encircled by pines, and the adjoining national forest is full of enchanting things to do.

I grew up here, in a two-bedroom cabin my dad built nearly half a century ago. We had another home -- our “real” home -- in Ontario, but my parents, my sister and I spent weekends and summers at “the cabin” for years. My sister liked it so well that she and her husband built a home of their own overlooking the lake.

My parents are gone now, and the cabin holds bittersweet memories for me. After my father died two years ago, I used to go up there and sit in his old leather recliner, looking out the broad picture windows at the clear mountain sunlight playing off the branches of the tall conifers outside. Or I’d dawdle on the porch swing where my mom and dad used to sit hand in hand, their devotion to each other still palpable after more than 50 years of marriage.

But my weekend reveries ended 10 months ago on a sunny day during an unusually wet winter. In the flatlands, rainfall nearly set a record. In Green Valley Lake, where the elevation is 7,200 feet -- higher than any other community in the San Bernardino Mountains -- it meant a nearly unprecedented amount of snow. On that first day of March, the sun came out, warmed the air quickly, and the snow started to melt. Decks and cabins throughout the community began collapsing from the shifting loads.

My neighbor, Jan Terry, said when she heard a loud noise and a crash, she thought her own house was breaking apart. Then she looked out her window to see that half of my home -- an addition that was built in the ‘70s -- was gone. The fire department came quickly, but there was little they could do.

Shortly before noon Jan called me at work and broke the news. A fireman came on the phone and said I should find someone to remove the snow from the other half of the house before it fell too. Contractor Jack Upfold, who had done some minor repairs at the house earlier, promised to hustle some workers up on the roof as soon as the power lines were disconnected. I contacted my insurance company, Allstate, and spent the rest of the day at work in downtown Los Angeles -- nearly 100 miles from my Humpty Dumpty house -- worrying.

Allstate representatives called me several times during the next few days, and my claim finally bounced to Jorge Amador of the severe-loss unit. Amador agreed to meet me at the site a week after the collapse. The trip -- a five-hour detour before lunch -- took me from my home on the coast to Green Valley, then to L.A. for a workday that would stretch late into the night.

But the worst part of that day was getting my first look at the bisected house, half of it familiar, the other half a jumble of debris. There was still about 3 feet of snow covering the rubble. But through the broken beams and snow, I could see a corner of a white afghan my mother had knitted, a painting of the cabin that my dad had done, a Cootie game I hadn’t seen since I was 8. I wanted to rescue all of it before melting snow destroyed it.

Inside the other half of the house, there seemed to be relatively little damage; the knotty-pine walls were erect, the water pipes still functioned in the kitchen and bath. A pillow with the words “Cabin Sweet Cabin” embroidered on it sat on a bench where I’d placed it months earlier.

When Amador arrived, he sank into a snowdrift up to his hip. “I didn’t realize it would be so deep,” he said.

We went inside the house, both of us taking care not to step too close to the drop-off where the house had split. My “deluxe policy” would cover snow and ice damage, he said, and building-code upgrades. “You need to leave everything as it is until the snow melts so I can get a better idea of the damage,” he added, saying that he would send a structural engineer to examine the house the following week.

So I made another morning trip, this time to meet engineer Bill Peek of Bausley & Associates Inc. Peek climbed into the attic, poked his way into holes in the crumpled section, asked questions about the floor plan pre-catastrophe. He said he thought the portion of the house that was standing was solid. Only the addition would have to be rebuilt. But there was still too much snow for him to check the foundation, and he said he would recommend another inspection later by an engineer who was familiar with high-elevation construction needs. In the meantime, everything would have to stay on hold.

“Your dad did a great job building this,” he said, as he examined the upright portion of the home. The comment made me smile for the first time in two weeks.

We talked about the possible reasons why the newer section collapsed -- its shingle roof may not have shed snow like that of the original house, which has a metal roof. Or perhaps it was the pitch of the roof: The newer section wasn’t as steep as the older section.

By April 1 -- a month after the cave-in -- I was becoming daffy about the family mementos moldering in the snow under the collapsed roof. I fretted about my mom’s quilt, my dad’s paintings and anything else that might be salvageable. There was still a couple of feet of snow on the ground.

My neighbor, Jan, called to say that enough snow had melted, however, for her to see into the collapsed section of the house. “I think when the roof fell it crushed all your furniture,” she said.

A couple of weeks later, Amador sent a second engineer to check the damage, but he was stymied by the heaps of debris. So Upfold got the go-ahead to clear away the rubble.

On April 23, I had my own mini-miracle as roofing, siding and bent window frames were cleared away. Under it all, the quilts, afghans, oil paintings and photos had survived. And Jan was correct, all of the furniture was smashed. I stood in front of the house with a pen and paper: As things were hauled to a dumpster, I listed them for my insurance claim. I couldn’t help but wonder: If it had taken this long to clear the rubble away, when would I be able to rebuild?

May came and went without it happening. I learned locals had started referring to my cabin as Half-a-House.

In June, Allstate sent a check for a little more than $6,000 for the contents of the house. Amador kept in touch about the rest of the claim, saying he was having difficulty finding a local engineer who had time for my project. Claims like mine usually take about two months to settle, he told me, but “in the Big Bear area there seems to be more work than there are people to do it.”

Contractor Upfold tried to solve the “find-a-local-engineer” problem by recommending Ralph Wagner, a Lake Arrowhead engineer. In June I met Upfold and Wagner at the cabin while they were inspecting the house. I told them that I’d like to add a second bath, which would be built at my expense. It was the only major change I envisioned. The standing portion of the house needed little work; the new addition would look much as it had before.

I didn’t realize my change would cost the project months of time. To get a permit to add a bathroom required that the property be surveyed, but mountain surveyors have crowded schedules. Wagner said he couldn’t move forward with plans until the survey was completed. Nearly three months -- almost the entire summer -- rolled by without anything happening.

Out of sentimentality, I decided to spend a couple of nights at the cabin despite its flaws. There was no electricity or heat, but I had water. “It’s like camping with your own bed and bathroom,” I told friends. But there was a lot of dust and the altered floor plan was too much for one of my dogs, a blind 14-year-old whose favorite part of the house had vanished. I found her shivering in a corner.

In August the survey was completed and sent to Wagner. He finished his work, and in October, all was sent to Amador. I dared to be optimistic that the end might be in sight. My optimism turned to dismay when I called in mid-December and he said he wasn’t sure he had enough information.

Maybe he sensed I was at the end of my rope. Maybe it was just the nearness of the holidays and he was feeling kindly. But what he said next delighted me.

“Perhaps we can resolve this in the next few weeks.” I can only hope.