Assessing the hurricane damage in Panama City, Florida
What happens when a hurricane is your workspace? Such was the case when licensed mechanical contractor Christopher Molnar was tasked with the recovery and inspection of HVAC equipment from residential and commercial sites in Panama City, Florida, soon after Hurricane Matthew ripped through its neighborhoods.
“There are no words that can describe the devastation,” Molnar says. “The sheer force of the storm was amazing.”
Molnar frequently acts as a third party investigator for insurance companies to make evaluations on whether HVAC units or equipment can be repaired or should be replaced. At the more than 20 sites he visited on his trip, HVAC equipment was either damaged beyond repair or gone completely. Photos show ceilings torn from living rooms, HVAC units smashed by trees, and brick homes laid bare in the wake of the storm’s devastation.
“It was a painful four days,” he says. “There wasn’t more to evaluate at that point. Part of the problem is that you can’t do HVAC evaluations if there is no power. They desperately need good contractors.”
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