Fence companies across San Diego County are scrambling to keep up with all of the damage left behind from strong winds on Sunday and Monday.
“This was in my opinion one of our biggest wind events that we've had in 10 to 15 years as a whole county,” said Mike Lepetri, general manager at Alpine Fence. Instead of just a small area impacted by wind, the storm swept through the whole county, leaving damage in nearly all of the neighborhoods.
Lepetri has been in the fence industry his whole life. So when the wind howled over the weekend, he said, “we're going to bed thinking tomorrow's going to be busy.”
And that’s exactly what happened. On Monday, Alpine Fence received more than 300 calls from people across the county with damaged fences. That’s more than six times the number of calls the company might receive over a regular weekend.
“Monday the phones were off the hook,” Lepetri said. And he has heard it’s the same story at other fence companies.
When it comes to repairing and replacing fences, the Alpine Fence’s top priority is homes with pools and pets.
Other homeowners like Steve Graham got lucky and had their fences fixed on Tuesday. Graham had already scheduled an appointment that day even before the storm for some minor damage to his fence. Little did he know the powerful wind on Sunday would knock over a large section of his iron fence.
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“Yeah it's metal but it was that strong. It was that strong, so it was crazy,” Graham said. “The entire section was just blown down. The winds were just really horrendous around here, so a lot of damage. We got lucky; it was relatively minimal,”
Alpine Fence crews welded the fence back together and then reinforced the entire fence with metal posts.
Lepetri said these days, vinyl fences are the most popular because of how long they last. Others prefer wood because of the way it looks. But Lepetri said wood begins aging the day it's installed, though it could still last up to 15 years.
When do you need to replace the fence? Lepetri recommends waiting until it's really necessary. “When you do see them wobbly, when you see them compromised and you have pets or pools, then you need to think about doing it before an event forces your hand to do it," he said.
And when it is time to replace, get ready to pay much more than a couple hundred dollars.
“Ha ha. It's a lot more expensive than that,” Graham said.
“It's often shocking to people. We get that a lot. Some people expect to pay $500 and you get out there and it’s significantly more,” Lepetri said. A hundred feet of wood fence for example can come out to be more than $2,000. Of course, it depends on the extent of the damage, the terrain, etc.
Still, if the fence is damaged, someone needs to fix it.
The phones are still ringing “off the hook” at Alpine Fence. But Lepetri expects the calls to die down by the end of the week. The work, on the other hand, is far from over.
Lepetri expects they will be replacing damaged fences from this windstorm all the way into November.
