Irene Repairs Keep Local Contractors Busy

(Host) Transportation officials say Tropical Storm Irene damaged 530 miles of state roads, as well as dozens of bridges.   

That's the bad news. The good news? It's been a boon for local contractors hired to fix them - many of whom had been struggling.    

VPR's Nina Keck has  more.

(Wilk) "Want to take a ride right up here?   I gotta see my grader operator."

(Keck) Steve Wilk eases his truck into traffic on Route 4.  

Wilk's Rutland-based paving company was one of several who helped put the road back together after Irene.

(Wilk) "We had a very slow spring. Steady but slow. With this disaster that faced us - just brought us from steady busy to extremely busy. And we're going to be that way because we pushed work ‘til next year. Going forward we have a large backlog of work."  

(Keck) Enough for Wilk to hire two additional employees and over a dozen subcontractors.

(Wilk) "It's good because we'll be able to keep the people we hired, keep doing what we're doing, and it's going to loosen us up a little bit. Maybe we're going to be able to buy a piece of equipment because we know we have some income to pay for it. So, we're not grateful for a disaster. But as far as the economy and us, it's going to help us. No doubt"

(Keck) Jim Murphy, president of ADA Traffic Control, says Irene pushed up their profits 40 to 50 percent. Murphy's Bridgewater based company is one of several in the state that provide traffic signs, orange cones and those brightly dressed flaggers who tell you to slow down and merge left. Allen Ostroy of Green Mountain Flagging says their business is up 30 percent.

(Ostroy) "What I thought was really neat, there seemed to be a camaraderie. And our competitors were calling us and we were calling our competitors and saying, ‘Can you take this job? Can you help out with this?'  Everybody kind of working together instead of competing for business, since it was a tragedy and there was so much work that needed to be done.  It was kind of cool."

(Keck) Chris Carl, foreman of SLC's quarry in South Wallingford, points to one of a steady stream of dump trucks entering and leaving.

Carl says their business exploded after Irene - what with all the gaping holes caused by flooding, crushed rock was a hot commodity.

(Carl) "Before the storm, we struggled to get 30-40 trucks a day.  After the storm, like the day after, we were in the 70 to 80 range. Best day was 450 trucks and that was a truck a minute."

(Keck) An unseasonably mild November has helped keep sales brisk. And while business will slow down once it snows, Carl says come spring it'll get crazy again.

(Carl) "Water starts to run again. All the roads that they put in aren't packed like they were when it washed out.. So they're definitely going to have to put more material in there and get ‘em beefed back up again. We're going to be really busy."

(Keck) As local contractor Gary Martin's truck rumbles on the scale, he settles up inside SLC's office for a load of gravel. While all the extra work's been good, he says getting paid has been tricky.

(Martin) "That's the worse part of it.  Bad summer to begin with. Now we've got plenty of work, but the money is slow coming from FEMA and customers just don't have it.

(Keck) Martin says it's a problem facing many contractors.  

Heading back out to his truck, he says he's just trying to fit in as much work as possible before winter and hopes the checks come sooner rather than later.

For VPR News, I'm Nina Keck in South Wallingford.