Weather: Fear of heavy rains spawned by El Niño is already
whipping up business for the likes of roofers and insurers.
Brea There's not a cloud in the sky and midday temperatures in this
inland community have been hovering in the high 90s for weeks, but at Brea
Roofing, Inc. everyone's attention is focused on winter rainstorms.
The company is one of scores of Southland businesses already feeling
the impact of Southern California residents' growing concerns over warnings
that this could be one of the wettest winters in decades.
From charter boats carrying record crowds of anglers to the warm-water-enriched
fishing grounds in the Catalina channel to insurance offices mailing out
reminders about flood coverage, the climatic condition known as El Niño
is the topic of the day.
"That's all we hear about," said Barbara Shirley, office manager
at Brea Roofing. "We are already booked into November, and we're turning
business away. Everyone who's calling for repairs or new roofs says they're
getting ready for El Niño."
Other weatherproofing professionals say they haven't experienced a business
boom yet. But wait until the first rains come down, they note.
"People usually don't realize that they need to replace their weather-stripping
until the water starts coming in," said Joe Camuglia, owner of CJ Weather-strip
Co. in Laguna Hills. "That's when I'll see my business start picking
up."
The cyclical El Niño phenomenon, which lasts from 12 to 20 months,
begins with a reversal of the trade winds, which usually blow from east
to west and cool the ocean's surface. That causes the ocean and the moist
area above it to warm, which in turn causes heavy, rain-laden clouds to
form. The reversed winds push the clouds out of the normal rain zone over
the Pacific and back over the western United States.
The condition could bring a huge increase in California's rainfall. In
the 1982-83 rainy season, El Niño conditions brought torrential storms
and record surf that together caused $265 million in damage to public and
private property in California, ripped up the Santa Monica, Seal Beach and
Huntington Beach piers and forced more than 15,000 people out of flooded
homes.
A storm on March 1, 1983, dumped 4 inches of rain on central Orange County
in six hours, causing more than $40 million in damage. A total of 1,110
homes were flooded when storm drains overflowed or unkempt roofs began leaking.
Now weather forecasters are warning that a new El Niño could bring
the worst rains in 50 years.
Jim Conrad, a State Farm Insurance agent in Seal Beach, took note of
the El Niño warnings and sent a letter to hundreds of clients recently,
reminding them that homeowner policies don't cover flood damage. The federal
government's National Flood Insurance Program does sell flood coverage.
State Farm, like most major insurance companies, writes and services
the policies, although consumers also can contact the national program directly
if they don't want to go through a commercial agent.
"Marketing of the federal flood policy has definitely stepped up
this year," said Candysse Miller, director of the Western Insurance
Information Service. It's not surprising, in wake of the flooding in the
Central Valley last year and the discovery that only about 25% of the people
with damage had flood coverage.
"It used to be that people would wait till the storm clouds were
on the horizon and then call their agents and take out a policy, but you
can't do that anymore," she said. "There's a 30-day waiting period
before the coverage kicks in."
Conrad says he sent letters to his clients to they'd be forewarned. "I
didn't want anyone coming to me afterward and complaining that they didn't
know they could get flood coverage," he said.
The agent, whose territory includes parts of Long Beach, says he wrote
about 25 flood policies last year, "usually for people who were buying
homes and were required by their mortgage lenders to get it."
This year, he said, he expects to write about 100 policies, most for
people voluntarily signing up because of El Niño worries. "I
wrote five just today," he said Monday, "and we're getting a lot
of calls."
Not from Ruby's Diner Inc., though.
The Newport Beach-based chain boldly built a pair of its signature 1950s
diner-style restaurants at the ends of the restored Seal Beach and Huntington
Beach piers.
But the company doesn't carry any special flood insurance on the two
restaurants, marketing director Valerie Schepens said.
"We're confident that the piers are sound," she said. "We've
had a restaurant on the Newport Beach pier, and it wasn't damaged last time.
We've not lost one yet, and we don't anticipate losing any this year."
Hardware and home improvement stores say there's been no notable increase
yet in demand for rainy season items, such as tarpaulins, sump pumps and
waterproofing caulks and cements.
"The people are concerned about the heat, not the wet," said
Umesh Patel, a cashier at Springdale Ace Hardware in a low-lying section
of Huntington Beach. "We're selling fans, not tarps."
The big chains say they aren't stocking up many rainy season supplies.
"We can get orders in 24 hours these days, so there's no point in spending
the money now to build up our stock," said Marie Krosen Connell, spokeswoman
for Irvine-based HomeBase Inc. "But we're tracking the weather reports
very closely, and as we get closer to the rainy season, we'll start making
those decisions."
Not everyone is waiting, though. Sand and gravel quarries say they are
beginning to receive a flood of calls from contractors and city agencies
that want to begin stockpiling sand and sandbags in case the worst does
happen.
"The phones started ringing off the hook last week," said George
Visser, office manager at Saddleback Sand & Gravel Co. in Lake Forest.
"We've probably got about 50 bids out already to contractors who figure
they're going to need a lot of sandbags for erosion control."
He said Malibu city officials are buying filled sandbags from Saddleback
Sand and other quarries as they prepare for yet another winter of rain-swollen
creeks and mudslides.
The warmer waters associated with El Niño already have created
a bonanza for charter fishing companies up and down the coast. Charter operators
say they are handling record numbers of anglers who are reeling in record
numbers of fish.
The warm current, which later this year could spawn devastating storms,
now is luring schools of game fish such as yellowtail tuna and doradoalso
called mahi-mahiusually not found in abundance this far north of the
equator. Boaters in Oregon have reported sightings of marlin, usually found
in Mexican waters, said Sergio Fainsztein, assistant manager at Davey's
Locker in Newport Beach.
The venerable charter companyfounded in the last 1940sruns
six boats, and for most of the summer they have been stuffed to the gunwales
with anglers. Even on weekdays, Fainsztein said, the boats are going out
with few empty spaces, including the company's 80-foot day boat, Freelance,
which carries 90 people.
"The last time we saw something like this was in 1982-83,"
said Fainsztein, adding that he hopes the similarities won't carry over
into the rainy season.
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