Originally published December 18, 2006 at 12:00 AM | Page modified December 18, 2006 at 12:52 AM

Tree removers, roofers, hotels in high demand

The fierce windstorm delivered a holiday bonanza to tree removers, roofers and hotels, all of whom are scrambling to answer calls for service...

By Sanjay Bhatt

Seattle Times staff reporter

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BETTY UDESEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Mercer Island homeowner Michael Crow watches Jared Bull remove branches from a tree that toppled onto Crow's roof in Thursday night's storm. It was the third large tree in the area that Bull and his crew from Pacific Tree Care tackled Sunday.

The fierce windstorm delivered a holiday bonanza to tree removers, roofers and hotels, all of whom are scrambling to answer calls for service.

As more than 300,000 of the area's utility customers entered a third day without power Sunday, hotels were jammed with requests for rooms.

"We're used to having kids around here, but not so many," said Monica Castilleja, who was juggling phone calls at the Silver Cloud Inn on Broadway in Seattle. The hotel's 179 rooms had sold out Friday and Saturday by early morning, she said. Sunday night was expected to be a sellout as well.

Hotels to the north, east and south also reported having no vacancies as people fled their powerless, ever-colder homes.

"Nobody's happy, but you got to make the best with what you got," said Geoff Harney, who mans the front desk at Courtyard by Marriott in Tukwila.

Some restaurants benefited from the continuing outages, although others were recovering from their own power problems. The line at Old Country Buffet in Bellevue stretched out the door, and a hostess there attributed the extra business to the power outages.

Meanwhile, tree-removal companies and roofing contractors were slammed by urgent pleas from homeowners. Calls to many companies were answered by recorded messages telling customers that they were overloaded and asking them to be patient.

At the Enumclaw office of Bruce's Roofing, Lisia Hintz was coordinating more than 250 calls for service that the company's voicemail had logged since power was restored there.

The office was without power Thursday, Friday and Saturday. At one point, she was receiving 35 calls an hour.

"People want their roofs tarped," she said. "They're in a panic."

Steve Thomas of American Tree Specialists said the company was triaging the 150 calls it had received over the past two days, giving top priority to customers with trees that had fallen on houses.

"We'll probably be booked for the next three months," he said.