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Meet the man who decides whether your home qualifies for a fortified roof

According to the Louisiana Department of Insurance, 664 grants have been approved, since the process began last fall.

NEW ORLEANS — Beads of sweat dripped from Ashley van der Meulen’s forehead as he hunched over to measure the spacing between nails that secured roof decking in the attic of a house in the Seventh Ward.  Beeps from a metal detector confirmed each nail, which van der Meulen marked off with a white stick of chalk.  It’s a necessary task for a job that keeps van der Meulen busy.    

“What I’m doing is making sure the roofer put nails every four inches,” van der Meulen said, noting the four-inch spacing was not optional, but rather, a requirement for homeowners looking to strengthen their roof through the state’s Fortify Homes Grant Program.

As state lawmakers look for ways to increase the number of insurance companies willing to write policies statewide, they’ve turned to programs such as Fortify Homes, to decrease risk.  They hope securing a home’s roof will lead to a lower premium; however, that’s something the insurance company decides. Van der Meulen, owner of Compass Inspection Services LLC, is one of three dozen state-approved evaluators for the grant program, which is intended to give incentive for homeowners to install a roof with a better chance of sustaining hurricane-force winds

“I think fortified is the wave of the future,” van der Meulen said.

According to the Louisiana Department of Insurance, 664 grants have been approved, since the process began last fall. The department said another 1855 grant applications are pending.

Once an application is filed, state-approved evaluators, like van der Meulen, make an on-site visit for measurements and a pre-evaluation.  It’s the first of several site visits and takes place before a roofer begins construction. 

First, van der Meulen says he measures a roof’s height.

“I get the distance from the overhang to the ground, and then I measure from the overhang to the peak of the roof,” he said, explaining he takes several measurements to get the mean or average height.

“That’s important for the wind design pressures of fortified,” he said, explaining his evaluation process from start to finish.

Once a project is approved and a roofer is selected, van der Meulen makes another site visit to ensure roofing shingles and other materials fall within requirements. 

“I take pictures of the shingles to get their brand name and fortified is very interested in the wind rating of each shingle, so I do that and then I have to find on every shingle I have to find these tags.  You see this one is Miami Dade approved,” he said as he reviewed a stack of shingles being installed on a roof in the Seventh Ward.

Translation -- he’s working to confirm that once installed the shingles won’t blow in the wind.

After Hurricane Ida, and other storms that followed, calls to fortify a home’s roof howled.

Blue tarps covered the melancholy as Louisiana homeowners scrambled for shelter from insurance that battered pockets and in some cases left homeowners, like Aubry Larson, high and dry – unable to afford sky-rocketing rates.

“When I bought the house, two years ago, my insurance was $5,000 a year, around there, and then the second year it went up to $8,000 a year,” Larson said.

Larson is covered through Louisiana Citizen’s, which is considered the insurer of last resort because of its built-in high premiums.

“It’s tough when you can’t get any other bids from any insurance company because of the age of your house or the age of your roof,” Larson said.

After state lawmakers approved the Fortified Homes grant program to incentivize homeowners to strengthen their roofs, Larson applied.

Consider her approval the luck of the draw as the Louisiana Department of Insurance, which oversees the program, issues $10,000 grants by way of a lottery system. 

“This is going to help me be able to shop other insurance companies,” Larson said.

Larson hopes that she will net a lower rate by proving her roof has a better chance of making it through severe weather.  However, as WWL Louisiana has reported, whether a homeowner will see a reduced rate depends on the insurance company.  Currently, state law does not require insurers to lower rates, even if they go through the program.

Even more, not all applicants qualify for the Fortify Homes program.  In some cases, van der Meulen stressed, not all homes can have a fortified roof.  He said that’s especially the case in the City of New Orleans.

“In New Orleans, we have a lot of older housing stock and these houses were built before codes and their rafter spacing might be wrong, their foundations might not be up to standards for fortified,” van der Meulen said.

Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple has programs such as fortified homes that will lead to lower rates.

But as some lawmakers give it a high score, van der Meulen says there are other alternatives – if your home does not pass the entrance exam.

One option is the wind mitigation program, which costs less than a fortified roof and goes a long way, according to van der Meulen.

“It focuses on a secondary moisture barrier like fortified.  It deals with impact ratings and reinforced doors,” he said.

The rush to reinforce is real.

That’s why van der Meulen says first up call a state-approved evaluator before you call a roofer.

As for roofers, they’ve been busy with hurricane season a couple of weeks away.

“I put on two fortified roofs last week, I’m putting on two this week.  I got two scheduled next week,” said Donnie Schwander, of Schwander Hutchinson Roofing.

Throughout southeast Louisiana, there is a frenzy to fortify – with homeowners rushing to dry out.

“All of a sudden, I’m in a house where I’m trying to figure out how to afford it.” Aubry Larson said.

With a new roof, Aubry Larson hopes her tide will change.  Next door, a blue tarp covering the roof of the home next door tells a different story. 

A tale of two roofs, where access proves shelter for some -- but not all. 

“This roof hadn’t been changed since after Katrina,” Larson said.

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