LV clean-up firms flooded with business

David Strow and Grace Leong

Friday, July 9, 1999 | 11:09 a.m.

For those in the business of repairing Las Vegas water damage, today is similar to the day after Thanksgiving for retail employees.

Companies that normally took three calls a day at most found themselves swamped with dozens of calls, as rains destroyed roofs and flood waters turned homes, streets and parking lots into lakes.

Companies in the business of cleaning that mess up are saying they're doing their best to keep up, but that it may be weeks before they can get to everyone. And fortunately for the storm's victims, price gouging doesn't appear to be taking place.

"It's pouring, thundering and lightning, and (callers) say, 'We want you here now,"' said Gayle Waycasy, product manager with Statewide Roofing. "Sorry, I'm not putting anyone out on the road.

"Those calls came in so fast, all we could take was names, numbers and addresses. We had three people manning the phones, and they couldn't keep up with this."

Statewide made four emergency runs Thursday -- three to businesses that had water leaking into their electrical systems, and a fourth to a house struck by lightning. Statewide's crews will make estimates through the weekend until at least Monday. After that comes the repair jobs, but Waycasy can't say at this point how long that will take.

At the Roofing Co., damage repair from the storm may go on for several months, said Meredith Pontow, a customer service and purchasing agent.

Insurance will typically pick up the damages from roof repair, Waycasy said, although many insurers demand several estimates first. That could delay the eventual repair of many roofs for weeks.

And while most parking lot-sweeping companies in Las Vegas received a higher-than-usual volume of calls from residents and businesses, most expect even more calls next week once the monsoons subside.

"People will usually wait until the rains are over before calling for a scheduled clean-up. Of course there are areas we have cleaned that may not be affected again. But most people are playing it safe, and waiting till the rains are over," said Kathleen Straub, president of Nevada Water Sweep Inc.

"We've had a higher-than-normal volume of calls since the flood began, and we've been on the phone all night. But once things are settled down, we expect the number of calls to double to a couple of hundred starting next week, from under a couple of hundred calls now," said Perry Ursem, marketing director for Best Water Truck Service.

And despite the flood of calls received, most sweeping companies are keeping rates steady at $65 an hour for water-truck services and $70-$75 an hour for large-scale sweeper services.

"This is an emergency for everyone. And this is a small town. If we screw the customer and word gets around, it's not good for us," said Ursem, who received calls for clean-up services from both residential and commercial customers.

Water trucks rather than street sweeping are more efficient at cleaning up mud and debris, especially when the mud is in a liquid state, said Straub, who received most of her company's business from parking lots.

The wait wasn't quite as long for companies waiting to have water removed from indoor flooding, but few water removal companies were able to meet their advertised pledge of "one hour or less."

"We could have done it in an hour, but the roads were all screwed," said Gary Brown, a partner at Complete Carpet Restoration Inc.

Brown and his partner are the only two employees the company has. They went out on 15 calls Thursday, keeping the men working until 9:30 at night. This morning, work began at 7 -- and two calls were already waiting.

Mirage Carpet & Upholstery is still severely backed up. That's because the company is one of several handling the massive clean-up job at the flooded Forum Shops at Caesars.