Letters

Thank you for addressing how Hurricane Charley has affected the roofing industry with NRCA's Associate Executive Director of Technical Services Mark Graham's column "Hurricane Charley: A preliminary report," October issue, page 73. However, the roofing community might be better served by a report about the recent inspections done by the Roofing Industry Committee on Weather Issues (RICOWI) when it becomes available rather than Graham's seemingly informal observations.

Graham states in the article, "In most instances, the roof systems damaged by the hurricane needed only minor repairs ... reattachment of the edge metal flashings, etc., to return them to functionality."

The use of the word "minor" is understated. When roof edge flashing is damaged, the entire roof system is at risk. Furthermore, in Florida's case, the hurricanes that followed Charley did not allow sufficient time for these "minor" repairs to be made permanent, causing an unquestionably significant amount of damage. If these "minor" damages had not existed, further damage may have been avoided by subsequent wind events. This is of great concern to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the commercial construction risk-management industry.

Later, Graham states, "fascia and copings attached with continuous front cleats appeared to perform well, but similar flashing configurations with intermittent or no front cleats, including some manufacturers' proprietary systems, did not."

It is interesting Graham uses reservation ("appeared to perform well") when referring to the performance of continuous front-cleat configurations. However, with certainty he states the "manufacturers' proprietary systems did not" perform well.

The inspection team consisting of NRCA staff members and member contractors observed contractor-fabricated and -installed roof edge assemblies "appear to perform" better than those edge systems contractors don't fabricate. Go figure.

I believe the technical insights of this group would better serve the roofing and construction industries if it had participated in the RICOWI effort rather than acted as a separate group. This would have allowed all levels of government and risk-management organizations to capitalize on the wealth of expertise a variety of trade organizations and individuals can provide.

According to Professional Roofing's Web site, its mission is to "provide readers with the most accurate, timely and objective information in the roofing industry." I am disappointed Graham's article obviously omitted specific technical investigative data supporting his observations and exposes the perception of contractor bias.

In my opinion, the most accurate and objective information was sacrificed for the sake of timeliness.

It would seem more prudent and beneficial to readers to provide more complete preliminary information with objective technical data. I agree with Graham that the devastation in Florida will be on everyone's minds for a long time to come. Also, Graham is correct in saying changes to current standards and more stringent code enforcement can be expected (especially for roof edge securement).

I hope Professional Roofing will rise to the challenge and provide more objective information about this subject supported by specific data when it becomes available.

Brad White
Metal-Era Inc.
Waukesha, Wis.

Following is Graham's reply to the letter:

"Thank you for reading Professional Roofing, specifically my column, and taking the time to share your concerns and opinions.

"NRCA's visit to Florida communities following Hurricane Charley was a response to a request from a number of NRCA-member Florida-based roofing contractors. We had assistance from those contractors, as well as other NRCA members, including contractors and manufacturers; the Florida Roofing, Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors Association; a major insurance carrier; and several local government agencies, who directed us to and, in some instances, accompanied us on specific buildings' roofs. Because of this collaboration, we were able to view some specific roofs and conditions that were not accessible to other wind-damage assessment researchers. Also, in several instances, we were able to view conditions on specific buildings' roofs I had an opportunity to visually inspect when I was in Florida several weeks before the hurricane.

"This type of investigation is similar to other investigations conducted by NRCA following natural disasters that specifically affect roof assemblies. Many of these investigations have been reported in Professional Roofing and elsewhere. NRCA certainly has the right to conduct its independent investigations of roof conditions under these circumstances. In fact, our leadership and many NRCA members consider it to be NRCA's responsibility and role in the roofing industry. NRCA will continue to provide this service to our members and the roofing industry.

"Regarding your comment that NRCA's investigation and my article have a contractor bias, I will leave that to Professional Roofing's readers to judge. The investigation and article did not attempt to seek out and point blame at individual parties. The article simply provides a brief, timely, one-page summary of what we observed during our investigation. The specific problem conditions mentioned in the article were not isolated instances; we observed them in multiple instances following Hurricane Charley.

"At the same time, NRCA's investigation and my article should not be viewed as the be-all and end-all report about Hurricane Charley and the other hurricanes experienced this year. The title of the article and my closing comments clearly indicate this was not the intention of NRCA's investigation or my article.

"NRCA awaits the public dissemination of RICOWI's investigation, as well as investigations conducted by others, including trade associations, FEMA and others."