The havoc that Hurricane Gustav wreaked on Baton Rouge in 2008 brought a deluge of customer calls to Marathon Tree Service. Owner Ted Harbourt says he subcontracted 3,500 orders with four companies from out of state and spent more than a month cutting trees out of houses and tying tarps down on roofs.
Hurricane Isaac, by contrast, brought about 350 calls to Marathon Tree Service.
Meanwhile, the roofing business can expect a boost following any storm, says Cribbs Inc., a Baton Rouge-based roofing and sheet metal firm. And while Isaac gave Cribbs a 30% bump in business, owner Robert Chatelain says the damage was minimal compared to Gustav.
“It’s not near as severe,” he says.
Baton Rouge held up strongly to Isaac’s slow plodding, largely because a high number of homes had had their roofs replaced following Gustav, Chatelain says. Back then he hammered in a lot of roofs with 30-year lamination—the architectural design of the shingle is heavier—and those customers fared well under Isaac’s gusts, Chatelain says.
After Gustav, insurance policies left many homeowners on the hook for thousands of dollars in repairs. Hurricane Katrina spurred a change to hurricane deductibles, such that property owners now pay to cover damage equal to the first 2% to 5% of property value. Many homeowners failed to realize there was a switch—and didn’t know which percentage they were obligated to pay—until they called for repairs after Gustav.
Years later, Chatelain doesn’t believe deductibles deter people from getting a damaged roof fixed.
“I think people are going to call anyway,” Chatelain says.
Harbourt likewise dismisses the notion that many homeowners forgo repairs when they have a live oak branch resting in their kitchen. He did, however, get a $750 quote turned down after Isaac—and in the rain—by an elderly woman on a street off Drusilla Lane who’d had a tree crash through a corner of her home. He says his guess is the woman’s deductible didn’t meet the quote and that she wanted another estimate. When he checked on her house a few days later, the tree was gone.
Following Gustav, State Farm says Louisiana policyholders filed 71,800 home insurance claims and 19,000 automobile claims. Since Isaac, Louisiana policyholders have filed 19,300 home insurance claims and 6,500 auto claims with State Farm. The majority of those claims were filed south of Baton Rouge. State Farm insists it is not capable of breaking down claims filed by parish.
“Of course, claims are still being reported for Isaac,” says State Farm spokesman Gary Stephenson.
Allstate Insurance says it does not share claim information before quarterly financial reports, “because we are publicly traded,” explains spokeswoman Allison Hatcher.
The Louisiana Department of Insurance says it won’t have estimates for how much was paid out in insurance claims following Isaac for at least two more months, adding that even then it wouldn’t have a figure for numbers of claims.
A year after Gustav, the Department of Insurance reported that among the 364,877 insurance claims filed statewide, 60,452 stemmed from East Baton Rouge Parish. As for claims paid, $2.2 billion was spent statewide and $575.7 million was spent in East Baton Rouge.
