Lumber Prices/ Coastal Destruction

[Jimmy_Cason]

Has anyone heard any news about lumber prices?  
Is this going to be like the gasoline supply now?
 
I lived in Biloxi Ms. until I turned 18. The first choice I made as an adult was to move away from a Hurricane area.  
After looking at a helicopter fly over of my old house and neighborhood that has been leveled, it got me to thinking.  
The destruction is for thousands of square miles.  
Thousands and thousands of houses must be rebuilt.  
This must cause havoc on the lumber supply and price.
  www.wlox.com (Flyover video on this page)  

[glenn-k]

I watched it on a Wikipedia site link last night .  They will probably rebuild a lot but you have to ask why when, not likely, but it could happen again tomorrow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina

Contains a running current event update- constantly being added to.

[Leo]

Jimmy in the late 60s we lived on the long beach ,Pass christian border one block off 90,we moved three weeks before Camille hit.that area was so nice back then when shrimp were cheaper than hamburger.oh no shrimp again.we were down there a couple of years ago and the placed was trashed from casinos and development.  

[Jimmy_Cason]

the place was trashed from casinos and development.  

I moved away in 1983. I didn't go back for ten years. I had tears in my eyes the first time I saw casino after casino lining the beach. My summers as a child were spent fishing and throwing a cast net in that area. Times change. :'(

[Jimmy_Cason]

This is from Msn

Hurricane Katrina possibly affecting prices at lumberyards
  
(Grand Rapids, August 29, 2005, 1:10 p.m.) Hurricane Katrina is affecting the price of many consumer products, including gasoline and lumber supplies.

Those at Miller Zeilstra Lumber in Grand Rapids say the usual early jump in lumber prices due to speculation has not happened this time around. It seems hurricane-weary southerners stocked up on lumber ahead of time to protect their homes.

But it's too early to tell what the future will hold.

In the past, lumber prices have increased an average of about 20 percent after major disasters, like hurricanes. One industry insider says whether that happens this time around will depend on not only the amount of damage, but what is damaged.

"It would probably depend on if it's residential areas or commercial areas, where it's not a lot lumber involved, where it's mostly steel, which we don't deal in. But if it's lumber and shingles and things like that, it will have an impact," Brian VanderHulst of Miller Zeilstra Lumber told 24 Hour News 8.

You can look for shingles and other roofing materials to be affected the most by any price increase.

We also checked with Caledonia-based Foremost Insurance, whose officials say they already have claims adjusters on the way to the Gulf Coast area. But they say it's too early to tell what, if any effect, the storm will have on insurance rates.

[spinnm]

Think you can count on everything going up.

Concrete is already on allocation.  Sheetrock, lumber, insulation, roofing, all of it.

[Brandon]

I operate a crating facility in Oklahoma City and the bulk of our lumber comes from the hurricane damaged areas.  It is my understanding from several lumber brokers that many of the mills are shut down because of damage.  The brokers have also told me that they are not allowed to place or price any orders for 48-72hrs until the damaged is further assessed.  

On the contrary I bought lumber yestaurday and the price hasnt moved as of then.

All who I have talked to said to expect a large price increase.

[Jimmy_Cason]

This Friday I am leaving for a week to help with Hurricane clean up at my Dads rural home.

 He lives about 15 minutes north of Biloxi  
He asked my brother and I to bring generators, gas, tents,water,chainsaws, cash and lots of toilet paper.

His home is damaged, but intact.
We are loading up a 20 ft. trailer today filled with donated supplies to give anyone that needs it or to the red cross.

You only hear of the beach area on the news. This is 20-30 miles inland and still demolished.  

Talk to you guys after next week.
This time it is personal.
                             Jimmy

[Epiphany]

Be safe Jimmy, and God speed.

[Leo]

good luck Jimmy ,our hurricane experience of 2 weeks witout power was you could get batterys after a while but bulbs were not to be found.bleach is also a big help for water purifaction unscented.also for cleaning and the mold.that coast has rebuilt before and will again.

[Bouncer]

take care and goodluck
Kevin

[glenn-k]

I hope all goes well, Jimmy - keep us posted.

[Amanda_931]

Yes, do keep us posted.

Nice long chatty, venting, etc. letters if you have the time.

[jraabe]

The destruction of New Orleans will have a major impact on prices of both exports and imports.

It is hard to overestimate what is the functional equivalent of a nuclear attack on a city that is the lifeblood of American commerce.

One of the great physical advantages this country has is the drainage system of the Mississippi River. For over two hundred years this river and its barges have brought down and carried up the high weight low value products that form the raw materials of commerce — the wheat, corn, iron ore, coal, and on and on.

Iowa feeds the world through New Orleans. Detroit builds cars based on low cost barge traffic from New Orleans.

New Orleans is a horrible place to build a city. It is too humid, too insect ridden, too low and way too subject to flooding to be a place where anyone would really want to live.

Except for the fact that this is the exact place a city has to be to do all the work needed for transport, reloading, off loading, and all the transfers between ship, rail and trucks. This is the critical link - or bottleneck - in the pipeline of raw materials that come and go from this country.

Now, and for a long time to come, there is no longer a city there to do that work. There is not only the physical damage to the homes and buildings. That would be bad enough. But there are no longer any workers there either. They are now refugees living in other towns and looking for new jobs.

When wheat costs four times as much to ship by train as it does by barge prices will go up or farmers will go bankrupt. Neither one is a happy ending.

[Amanda_931]

Somewhere along the line everybody has seen this, haven't they?

South Louisiana is sinking.
The wetlands are shrinking.
The barrier islands are not regenerating, currently blamed on all the levees built to prevent flooding.

The latter two would have mitigated the storm surge.

So John is right, the Gulf Coast at the end of the Mississippi is the best place for a port to bring goods into and out of middle America.  But back in the 1700's--the French days--it was a better place to put a city than it is now.

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

[Leo]

The corps of engineers has been fighting the rivers wanting to flow to the west,affalatcha? basin for years.this may be the time to let nature take its course.I smell a land grab coming with all those houses that will be condemmed.  My wife and I met there and lived there,weve gone back to visit fairly often.I always enjoyed the music ,food ,buildings,bars that never close(I was a younger man then) and those 100 year old master pieces of engineering.the  street cars with there mahogany and brass.what public transportation should be.Id bet only the most lucrative parts will be rebuilt. most of the locals were real nice and would go out of there way for a stranger.

[Jimmy C.]

http://media.putfile.com/hurricane-relief16



Here are a few pics of my trip down to rural Mississippi to take food and drink to my Dads farm and to my brothers and sisters living there.

One of my brothers worked at the Grand Casino in Biloxi as slot machine tech. He lost his job and His house has a large tree on top of it.

Another brother had his house flooded. It smelled so bad in that area I still can't get the funk out of my nose 2 days later.

No power, no water, little hope.

The rural areas are not getting the attention from the red cross.

At the nearest Walmart that was not destroyed, you must wait in line for hours as a few people at a time are allowed in. When you do get in, there is very little food.

Please remember the rural areas as far north as 50-90 miles inland faced Cat. 3 hurricane winds

[Leo]

 Im glad youre family is safe,it still is hard to comprehend.from mobile to the other side of New orleans is almost a two hour drive on interstate 10 thats east to west .with major damage to the parishes south of New Orleans to damage in jackson and beyond.??and all the little communitys in between.   the shrimpers down there after Camille would get skulls and human bones in there nets in the missippi sound  ,they would throw them back as the health dept would condem there catch.you could find all kinds of stuff in the ground years later it was like everything was put in a big blender  and scattered.  having stood infront of the world trade center and staring up and up it was hard to believe they came down.this is even harder to imagine. Theres an opportunity here to bury utility lines restore marshland, natures buffers and build with the next one in mind I hope they do it.

[Lady_Novice]

Wow! Local building supply store here said NO plywood or OSB will be available for the next two months due to Hurricane Katrina. He said it wasn't just his particular store but applied to this entire area. He said all plywood/OSB is being shipped to the Gulf Coast for rebuilding. He said that two major plywood/OSB mills in Louisiana were demolished and that caused part of the supply problem.

Has anyone else heard the same or similar in your area? I haven't yet called other building supply places but I will do so and report back if I hear better news. Regular lumber is still available here for now. I called the local concrete plant and they said they have supply for now.

So this worries me a little. I'm about to have my slab poured and I wanted to get a framed shell closed in before the worst of the winter hit. (I'm way behind schedule; I thought I'd be beyond framing by now.) I wanted to sheath the exterior with plywood but if necessary I suppose I could sheath with solid wood PLUS metal bracing to provide the shear resistance that the plywood would have provided. I'd have to research that.

My location is northern Idaho. (Previously I had mentioned that I planned to build near Leavenworth, WA, but I decided I wanted to live closer to a major city [Spokane].)

My sympathies to those who are suffering other, far worse, results of Katrina.
Lady Novice

[Amanda_931]

No, I haven't been in a lumberyard for a month or so.  It sounds pretty scary, though.