History: Great HailStorm of 1961; Shreveport, Caddo Par., Louisiana Submitter: Frank M. Smart Date: Oct. 2001 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** THE GREAT HAIL STORM OF 1961 OR “THE YEAR WE ALL GOT WELL” October, 2001 A sidebar to the Shreveport Sheetmetal workers article It was early March, 1961, and I was lying on my bed in my parents home at 6013 Southern Avenue, in Cedar Grove, when the storm hit without warning. Hail! Large hail. Some the size of softballs and that was the start of “The Year We All Got Well”, financially that is. Those large pieces of frozen water damaged roofs all over Caddo and Bossier Parishes,, plus other sundry property damage. Of course, all I cared about was the roofing. That’s was the business my family and I had been in for years. My Daddy, Frank Madison Smart, Sr., was, at that time, General Shop Foreman for H. H. Bain Roofing Company, recently moved into their new facility on Southern Avenue near Boyd Gamble’s “Cotton Boll Center” shopping center. I had quit Bain’s earlier that year and was working for Wyatt Nichols at Nichols Roofing and Sheetmetal Company as a sheetmetal helper at $1.25 hour. I was hoping to get my apprenticeship at Nichols, but there was Wyatt Jr., and his brother-in-law Buddy in front of me. The next morning when I reported to work to Shop Foreman, Cecil Streetman, he said he had a new assignment for me. Wyatt had just purchased a brand-new 1960 Chevy stationwagon for the business and I was assigned to drive it and help a great gentleman named Pete Kolb. The calls from homeowners with damaged roofs were pouring into all roofing businesses that morning. Mrs. Nichols was making lists with address, grouping them by location in the city and Pete and I were on our way. We would pull up to the address on our list, which in a few days had about 100 addresses on it. I would pull an aluminum, double-section, 20-foot ladder from the back of the wagon, put it up against the roof, climb up and using a 100-foot tape measure, start taking measurements. Pete, after introducing himself to the home owner, would then start taking down my measurements as I called them off. By the time I had the ladder back in the wagon, Pete would have presented our estimate to the home owner and we would be on our way. The insurance companies had all agreed upon a set price to pay each home owner. No matter how much damage was done, you were going to get X number of dollars per square of roofing and that was that. Knowing what that amount would be eliminated any competition among the roofing companies. We were all charging the same–the same as the insurance companies were paying. My Daddy made one of the smartest moves of anybody that March evening by calling his representative at the Bird Roofing Company, where he bought the majority of his materials for Bain’s. He immediately put in an order for 10,000 squares of 210-pound, white composition Page 2 shingles. Of course, the next morning everyone was calling Bird and putting in an order, but Daddy was first in line. Most homes used the white, heat-repelling shingles. Within one or two days came the phenomenon known as “Storm Chasers”. Storm Chasers did just that–they chased storms and did the repair work. There were certainly not enough roofers in the Shreveport area to handle this great increase in business. The lead storm chaser usually hit town first. In this case it was a man and his wife in their homemade camper shell on the back of a pickup truck. They negotiated with Wyatt Nicholls for all the work we could give them, and there was plenty. The roofers arrived soon and found cheap lodging and prepared to go to work. The roofers worked piece-work. So much for every square of shingle they could nail on in a day. If memory serves me correct, a good roofer could do 15 squares a day and I believe they made about $4 per square. That’s $60 a day in 1961–and tax free to boot. Not bad wages. The roofers could work as long as they wanted to and there was never a lack of work–at least for several months. The lead storm chaser did well also. While he was paying the roofers $4 per square, he was probably getting $6 per square from the roofing company. Each roofer was making him $2 per square and sometimes the leadman would have 15 roofers working for him. He got very well that summer in Shreveport and then went on to the next storm when the work played out. The man’s wife also did well by fixing the roofers a box lunch and charging $1 for it. It was a convenience for the worker who did not want to stop long for lunch. Every time he drove a nail it meant money. And so the summer wore on and eventually most of the damaged roofs were replaced or repaired and Pete Kolb, who was a great gentleman and dear friend of my Daddy, went back to our normal routines, me the sheetmetal helper, Pete the roofing estimator. The roofing manufacturer had a good summer, the local roofing companies had a good summer, the local and the itinerant roofers did well and Pete and I had a good time doing our thing. Of course not everyone got well that summer–the insurance companies took a $5 million hit. Well, it is a risky business.