Climate change and the resulting severe weather events are creating a big change to our daily lives.
The business side of the flooding, wildfires, landslides and wind storms has brought an even greater demand for skilled tradespeople. Residents in the hardest hit areas are looking at weeks, in some cases, before someone can even get to their homes to assess the damage.
That’s not to mention the process of trying to go through insurance claims, if coverage is even applicable, stretching the rebuilding process for some homeowners into many months. And then we all have to hope these atmospheric rivers don’t return to the same magnitude during the winter that hasn’t even officially started yet and might cause a repeat in the process.
These once in a 100-year or once in 40-year events are now reduced to once every two years or thereabouts.
It all means a heavy workload for already busy tradespeople. Young people looking to get into a career might be wise to check out all the construction, plumbing, restoration and other such opportunities.
On the other hand, there’s also a chance for recently retired people with any of these valued skills to come out of retirement to do odd jobs to give themselves some extra income to prop up their old age and pension benefits. Depending on their capabilities, the retirees can play a valuable role in helping to clear the backlog so some homeowners don’t have to wait so long for repairs.
In addition, those with storage facilities and containers are seeing a huge spike in business that was already beginning to boom. The demand is enormous now for places where people can store their items temporarily or even for the long term while restoration work is being done.
Car rentals have also increased as transportation alternatives are required while claims are processed with ICBC for submerged vehicles and those damaged from the flooding are repaired.
The list goes on and on. It’s a tough time for so many who need to put out the expenditures, but a necessity and there needs to be a full range of options to bridge the gap as quickly as possible.