Storm Damage Emergency Response in Metairie, LA

The line is answered at any hour and the address is logged immediately. How fast a crew reaches you depends on how widespread the event was and whether it is safe to travel and to work at height. After an isolated incident it is usually same day. After a named storm affecting the whole parish, the queue is worked by risk and we will tell you honestly where you sit rather than give you a time we cannot keep.

Because a storm damaged roof deck is the thing most likely to injure someone, and it looks normal from the ground. Lost or lifted sheathing, impact damaged framing and a ceiling heavy with water can all have badly reduced load capacity, and some of it cannot be judged reliably from below. The deck and framing are evaluated first, and where they will not safely carry a crew we say so rather than risk it.

Get everyone out from under any bowed or dripping ceiling and move what you can from under the leak. If water is reaching sockets or fittings and you can reach a completely dry breaker panel without walking through water, switch off the main breaker. If the panel is wet or damaged, or you would have to cross water to reach it, leave the building and call an electrician or the emergency services instead, and never touch a panel while standing in water. Do not get on the roof and do not enter the attic if the ceiling below is loaded. On a generator, Entergy is explicit that you must never power the house wiring by plugging it into a wall outlet, which is called backfeeding.

Our crew will stay out of the area and will not work near it until Entergy has attended, and nobody touches or moves the line. Entergy says to assume every downed line is energised, that it can kill even if it does not spark, hum or move, and to stay away from anything touching it such as a tree, a fence or a vehicle. Report it on 1-800-968-8243. If you have to move away from one, shuffle with your feet together rather than taking large steps, because the voltage spreads out through the ground. This is not negotiable and no contractor should tell you otherwise.

Hazard control around the property, the structural evaluation, emergency weatherproofing where the structure allows it, and removal of debris that is dangerous or in the way. It deliberately stops short of permanent repair, which is surveyed and quoted as its own scope afterwards so you are not paying an emergency rate for work that was never urgent. Call Big Easy Roofing on (504) 800-8196 for an estimate.

We stop water coming in and we document what came in. Drying a saturated structure, dehumidification, lifting floors and dealing with what grows afterwards is water restoration, which is a different trade with different equipment. We will tell you plainly what we have stopped, what is still wet and what needs a restoration contractor, rather than leaving you to discover the gap later.

Material that is dangerous or in the way is removed on the emergency visit, along with nails and sharp debris where we have been working. A full clearance of tree limbs and blown material across a property is scoped separately, because after a large storm it can be a bigger job than the roof work and it is fairer to price it on its own.

No, and no responsible contractor will. Working at height while a named storm is passing is how people are killed. The line stays open through the event, we log the address and give you advice, and crews are dispatched once wind speed drops into a safe working range. The same applies to lightning nearby and to standing water where the ground cannot be seen.

We record the conditions the emergency work affected, before material is moved, and write a good faith itemised and detailed estimate for the permanent work. What your policy does about any of it is a question for your insurer or a licensed public adjuster, because Louisiana law prohibits a contractor from interpreting policy coverage or duties.

Yes. Big Easy Roofing answers storm emergency calls across all of Metairie, including Old Metairie, Bucktown, the Lake Vista side and the streets off Veterans and Metairie Road, with coverage extending to Kenner, Harahan, River Ridge and the rest of Jefferson Parish.