ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Rain-Related Business Pours In at O.C. Rental Equipment Sites

At Gary Indes’ rental equipment center in Garden Grove, the telephones have not stopped ringing since the week’s record-breaking rains.

People want pumps, blowers, drying equipment, anything they can get their hands on to dry out flooded cars and homes, Indes said Friday as he juggled phone calls.

“People are actually renting stuff right now for the next storm, and that includes blowers, heaters, pumps and carpet equipment,” said Indes, owner of Haz Rental Center. “We’ve got a waiting list with 18 names on it.”

Since the storm ravaged the region on Wednesday, customers have been lining up at rental centers to obtain equipment to dry out everything from submerged cars to sodden carpets and furniture, store owners said.

Some storm victims, anxious to prove that their needs are greater than those of others, have regaled counter clerks with tales of earthworms swimming through their living rooms or water half a foot deep in their garages.

“People have even told us they had water coming down through their chimneys,” Indes said. “They’ve been telling us their yards have gone into their homes, with 4 to 5 inches of dirt, mud or water.”

At a Westminster U-Haul center, Manager Ken Anthony said his entire inventory of blowers and drying equipment had been rented by mid-day Friday.

“We’ve rented a dozen to two dozen trucks because people are having to move out of their apartments because their place is totally flooded and they are moving to a drier place,” Anthony said.

But the flooding has not been limited to private homes. More than half a dozen businesses have rented U-Haul trucks from Anthony to save wet inventory from further rain damage inside warehouses.

“We lost one truck when one of our renters tried to navigate through a flooded intersection in Huntington Beach,” he said. “We had to go with another truck to get it towed out of there.”

Jim Martinez, a rental clerk at Knipper’s Rental Center in Santa Ana, said he and others at the store have been forced to remain open extra hours because of the crush of rain-related requests.

“So far,” Martinez said, “the biggest thing that people want is the turbo dryers. These are the big blower-fans like the fire departments use.”

With more rain expected today, “quite a few people have already been calling us to reserve pumps,” said Jeff Van Marter, store manager for Pro Equipment rentals in Anaheim. “And, the waiting list for carpet dryers keeps building.”