Back-East Weather to Hang On : Quick Repairs Promised for Roof Damages

Edward Gogin stood outside his Mission Viejo home about 6 p.m. Saturday when “a little bit of a gust began kicking up.”

Suddenly, a 10-pound red clay tile from Gogin’s roof flew over his head. Gogin ducked. The tile crashed into pieces in his driveway.

“It just missed me,” he said. “It was a spooky experience.”

After that, Gogin stayed inside his house.

However, even the shelter of the newly built homes was not enough for some of the 100 residences affected by the weekend’s 50-m.p.h. winds in the Ventana area of Mission Viejo.

Through Window

Several families huddled inside their homes as the wind swept tiles off the roofs and sent them flying onto the ground, into walls and through one child’s bedroom window.

Debris--including roof tiles, plywood and aluminum roof-vent covers--whirled through the night as weather conditions tested the stamina of the new neighborhood’s homes, each less than a year old.

Representatives from the developer, Barrett American Inc. of Irvine, inspected the damage Sunday and found about 100 houses with at least one tile broken and 20 homes with significant damage, company president Mark Frazier said Monday.

Inspectors from the three separate contractors that installed the tiles are expected to survey the damage today, Frazier said.

“Until the contractors review them, I’m not sure, but it seems to be a contractor-related problem,” Frazier said. “Whether it’s our insurance or (the contractors’), somebody will take care of it. I don’t see a homeowner having to incur any out-of-pocket expenses.”

No Injury Reports

Frazier estimated $20,000 to $30,000 in structural damage throughout the neighborhood. There were no reports of injuries.

Residents were mostly concerned Monday for their safety.

“So far no one’s been hurt,” resident Robert Pompeo Jr. said Monday night. “But there still are tiles dangling off the roofs. The kids can’t go out and play. That may not seem like a big deal, but these roofs are 22 feet in the air; if one of those falls, someone could get killed.”

Gogin said that the way the tiles were flying around Saturday, he is surprised none of his neighbors were hurt.

“Essentially, I was afraid to go outside,” Gogin said. “My wife and I were sitting there at 1 a.m. watching TV, and we could hear the tiles lifting up and dropping and making this rumbling sound. The wind hit the roof in a specific way, and there were ripples starting from one side going through the house like a wave, and it sounded like each individual tile was lifting up.”

Frazier explained that the clay tiles are not nailed down but overlap each other to keep them in place.

“If you get one tile coming up, then the wind can get up under all of them,” he said, adding that his company will try to repair the roofs in the next few weeks.