Fence repairs in high demand after winds whip through the Valley

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- The whipping winds wiped out fences across the Valley.

Fencing companies and handyman services say their phones were ringing off the hook Wednesday .

"It was windy. It was really, really windy," said Estevan Ramirez of Kingsburg.

The high winds that moved through the Central Valley Tuesday evening left their mark.

In Kingsburg, the Ramirez family heard the damage as it happened.

"My dad heard it. He heard the fence hit the ground." Ramirez said. "It was just - you could see their fence. And I was like 'Oh, that's not good.'"

The fence fell into the alleyway, so they propped it back up into their yard temporarily.

The Ramirez family rents the property and had no idea the fence was at risk of falling over.

"It looked fine to us, but then the deeper we got into it was -- it was rotted, it was corroded it was going to go sooner or later."

The property management company called out handyman Devin Luke with La Rosa Property Management.

"Around probably 10 a.m. this morning I had probably six people call me from all over, some from Fresno, some Sanger, some Kingsburg, all needing their fence repaired from falling down," Luke said.

He looked at the damage and figured out an estimate before heading to the next call.

Luke says after a wind event, this kind of damage is common.

"Most of the time it is from the post rotting out at the base of them and then they just get really weak and you have a wind come through and knock them all down," Luke said.

He salvages the parts of the fence he can to help keep costs down for customers.

Luke says the best thing you can do is check your fence before these weather events happen.

"One way you can kind of check to see if your fence is going to go any time soon is just go up to your post kind of wiggle it back and forth. See if it's loose or see how sturdy it is. If it's pretty loose, it's probably going to go pretty soon," Luke said.

Checking your fence ahead of incoming storms is especially important for pet parents.

I spoke with the City of Fresno who said, as of now, they haven't had any pets picked up by animal control because of yesterday's weather event.

They say that's not unusual because it takes a few days for those pets to turn up.

They'll have a better idea if this storm caused an uptick by the end of the week.