LESS THAN HALF OF CITY EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE COMPLETE

 
THE 6-point 5 EARTHQUake that ROCKED humboldt county LAST JANUARY IS STILL CAUSING HEADACHES FOR SOME… HOWEVER
MASONRY companies say they have been booked solid with earthquake repairs and they don’t expect it to slow down anytime soon.
NEWS CHANNEL THREES ANDREA MARVIN HAS MORE
 
“the aftermath is getting it back to how it was but where you want it to be.”
 donna gafford, owner of a bed and breakfast has suffered aftermath of januaries quake.
“in operating business its been somewhat of a trial bc things i’ve had to do.. i do garden parties, weddings and you want it to look as nice as possible and not make the construction noticable.”
she says crew just wrapped up chimney repairs on her business from the quake that happened over 6 months ago..
nat sound.
and she is not alone.
“well when the earthquake comes through it flexes the chimney and breaks the roof line below.”
tim gabrielson , owner of a local MASONRY company is working on a chimney that was also busted from the quake and says it’s the most COMMON repair.
“non-stop calls since the earthquake been busy.. getting all the paper and engineering work done with the city of eureka is the hardest part.”
and that’s because the city has been backed up with assessing over 5-hundred damaged properties.
“so we did pull in resources from different jurisdictions like the city of fortuna, arcata, and humboldt county. having to pull those resources definitely shows we had the most damage county wide.”
and out of those hundreds of properties the city issued 1-hundred and seventy earthquake related damage permits
and of that about a hundred of them are still in progress.
 but why is it taking so long
“a lot of it has to do with the resources available to them, CHIMNEYS in particular are a costly item to repair or to demolish even. so people have to find out how damage repair with no outside assistance available.”
 brian says the engineering evaluation and limited MASONRIES and crews in the area also add to the time.
a time frame that officials don’t expect to speed up anytime soon.
“will be fixing this damage for years to come”.