National Clothesline

The 2004 hurricane season has been unforgiving. Insurance losses from the four major storms to date will exceed $22 to $23 billion, making it the second-largest insurance loss disaster event — 9-11 was the worst — in American history, Insurance Information Institute estimates. All four hurricanes — Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne — are ranked in the top ten worst U.S. hurricanes for property losses.

Then there is the matter of uninsured damages, which are much more difficult to tabulate. Some experts say that uninsured costs reach as high as $20 billion for Charley and Frances alone.

The Insurance Information Institute has projected that this year’s four major storms have generated more than 2.2 million claims altogether. Many of those come straight from the drycleaning industry.

Jake Vick, third-generation owner of Vick Cleaners in Pensacola, FL, will be completely writing off one of his six operating plants as a result of the storms. Another plant sustained about $180,000 in damages.

Adding insult to injury, Vick faced an additional $6,000 in garment damages and he was robbed by looters who were able to simply walk into one wrecked building and steal some of the clothes.

Withstanding the deadly winds was only one challenge; dealing with the emotional aftermath is another. According to Vick, one of the most shocking sites after the hurricanes was that of man-made monument dubbed “Mt. Trashmore,” one of a dozen huge collection points set up around Dade County that has received millions of tons of debris that have been stacked up well over 100 feet tall.

Fortunately, Vick was heavily insured, but that didn’t help assuage his biggest concern: he can no longer offer same-day service to his clientele. Instead, poor working conditions have pushed production back to a three-day turnaround. It’s quite possible his customers will opt to go to a competitor who didn’t lose a plant to the hurricanes.

Strangely enough, the plant Vick lost completely was the Dixie Cleaners business he had purchased from retired cleaner Joe Greenblatt, 53, who was one of Pensacola’s 19 recorded casualties during Ivan. He died on September 16, leaving behind two sons, Ben and Joe, and his wife, Janet.

A writer from the Pensacola News Journal described Greenblatt as “quick-witted and kind” and an avid fisherman who was living out his dream in paradise.

“Joe had decided to evacuate, but then they kept predicting that the storm was going to go further west and come on at Mobile instead of Pensacola. So, he decided to stay,” said Barry McElveen, executive director of the South Eastern Fabricare Association. “He lived right on the Gulf and a 30 foot wall of water came in and took his house and everything. It took him with it.”

Other Florida-based cleaners were much luckier, but had their own set of hardships to face.

Ray Griffin, owner of Griffin’s Dry Cleaning & Laundry, Inc., got hit by Charley, Frances and Jeanne.

“The plant in Sebring lost its awning and its 35-40-ft. drive-thru, which really makes our business unique. That’s totally gone and will be for some time,” Griffin explained. “Our store up in Avon Park not only lost its drive-thru, it lost half of its roof during Charley and then Ivan took the rest of it. Our plant over in Wauchula lost its roof. It had really extensive damage inside with the electrical and everything.”

Being hit by three hurricanes makes for an interesting insurance situation since Griffin may have to pay three different deductibles for the same damaged roof. Yet, despite the setbacks, Griffin is grateful that his business wasn’t hit harder.

“There are a lot of people without work,” he said. “There are very long lines for FEMA — for food, ice and water. Friends you went to school with are totally out of work, or their business is totally gone, or their house is blown away.”

The day after Charley hit, Griffin took his wife and four children down into Desoto County to chip in with the relief efforts.

“We went to a county east to buy a lot of chicken, things like that,” he said. “We used one of our route vans. You could not believe the devastation. I saw it on TV when Andrew came through. People were painting things on their garage doors — you know, who their insurance company was, the policy number. That day, there were just little tubes of aluminum tacked on high trees where places had been. They didn’t even have garages anymore.”

In addition to demolishing countless man-made structures, the hurricanes also affected the local economy. Drycleaning wasn’t a high priority for most people immediately afterward, but Griffin did note that business is starting to creep back toward normal levels.

Lang Houston, owner of Crest Cleaners and a past president of IFI, concurs. In terms of coverage, he was well-prepared when Frances hit his cleaners. However, he wasn’t ready for the exhausting effects of being hit by 80-90 m.p.h. winds for 20 long hours.

“It beat us to death,” he recalled. “The wind got underneath the roof and peeled off about 60 percent of it. Water poured in over by where the clothes were on the conveyors. But, you know what? We don’t use cheap poly and it protected those clothes.”

Some garments needed to be rewashed or drycleaned again, but Houston was very pleased that none were ruined.

“We didn’t have to pay for one item. It was unbelievable,” he said. “If you wanted to bet me $100,000, I would’ve lost money. I sure thought we’d have to pay for some clothes out of it.”

In addition to roof damage, Crest Cleaners also lost seven signs and endured severe carpet damage and had plenty of its insulation ripped out.

“I thank the good Lord every day that I didn’t have it worse,” he said, noting that business is back close to usual. “I just turned 65 and I can’t take it like I used to. I was on roofs having to do a little temporary patchwork to help us get by. You do anything you can.”

In Mobile, AL, Master Cleaners General Manager Mark Jones did everything he could before Ivan even arrived.

“We decided to close early and began protecting the computers and wrapping all of the clothes. We actually had poly on top of poly,” he said. “We did not board the windows on the basis that we got through Hurricane Frederick years ago back in 1979. We did take the precaution of parking the van in front of the window to protect it from flying debris.”

The following day, Ivan’s intense winds hit with a vengeance at six Master Cleaners’ locations.

“A whole air conditioning unit on the roof got ripped off the roof and rolled over,” he said. “We had roofs collapse. Canopies were missing. Windows and signs were broken.”

Fortunately, no clothes were damaged. Even though business suffered for a week due to damage and power outages, it has climbed back up — and beyond.

“We have an army of insurance adjusters in town for all of the people who have damages,” Jones explained. “A lot of them are literally living out of their suitcases. They bring in their suitcase with all of their dirty clothes. We clean it, fold it back up and put it in their suitcases. They all need drycleaning so the demand for drycleaners in the town has increased.”

That boom may be short lived, but Jones will take it while he can. After all, he has other issues to contend with, like how to find a professional to fix his precariously hanging canopies. At the moment, the demand for carpenters and roofers is, well, through the roof.

He also faces difficulties with his business income insurance. In cases of power outages, there is no coverage for business income (also known as business interruption) unless there is sufficient damage at the location to prevent it from being open.

According to Ann Hawkins, vice president for NIE Insurance, many cleaners recovering from hurricanes are running into problems with their business interruption insurance, which essentially covers “profit and payroll and continuing expenses” during a business’s downtime following a disaster.

“People can’t open stores or they have lost electricity so they call for business income,” Hawkins said. “There’s no business income coverage unless there’s damage at the location, or unless they have purchased something called Utility Services Time Element. That is coverage where there’s a loss of power due to a hurricane or a windstorm or something else that would be covered by the policy.”

Hawkins also added that every quote NIE Insurance gives to cleaners features such coverage.

“We tell them up front you can buy this if you want it,” she said. “A lot of people don’t buy it and then they’re sorry that they didn’t. If you’re in the coastal area, I would suggest that everybody buy it because it’s really not that expensive.”

Not purchasing enough insurance — or understanding everything that is covered — can be hazardous, as Tom Wilson of American Cleaners in Canton, NC, recently discovered when his plant was severely flooded.

“We’re 100-percent wiped out,” he said. “Frances was first. Ivan was second. On Sept. 8, I had 78 inches of water in my plant. On Sept. 16, I had 92 inches.”

The first flood crashed right through most of the plant’s windows and doors, but the second flood took most of the items inside along with it.

“On the second flood, I had one 6-foot wide plate glass burst, and out of that window went a refrigerator, a table, 11 new wedding boxes, a brand new Hewlitt-Packard 1012 laser printer, a cable modem that was on a shelf 8 feet high, two wheelbarrows and God knows what else,” he said. “It all went out and went on to Tennessee.”

Though Wilson had insurance protection on his property, he was unaware that his building’s contents were not covered on the policy.

“I just spent about $100,000 on some new equipment five months ago. All of it could not be salvaged,” he noted. “Basically, due to the fact that it’s all considered contents, I’m having to re-buy that stuff again. That’s the pill that’s hard to swallow.”

Rather than giving up, Wilson hopes to be back soon.

“I am going to rebuild,” he said. “I have either sent all of my equipment out to be rebuilt or I am in the process of having new equipment come as we speak. And, with the good Lord willing, in four to five weeks I’ll be up and running again.”

The next time around, Wilson will not take any chances with his insurance, and also advises that others do the same.

“I would strongly recommend that any drycleaner today reassess what his replacement value would be on his equipment and cover his tail with contents — whatever the replacement value is.”

The North Carolina Association of Launderers & Cleaners has requested that any drycleaners with spare laundry carts, nets, pads and covers — or any of the hundreds of other little things it takes to operate a cleaners — donate them to Wilson. For more information, call the NCALC office at (336) 389-9011.