It isn鈥檛 easy to see a bright side to a hurricane鈥檚 destruction. But in the mountains of metal piling up in Dennis Laviage鈥檚 scrap yard, a sense of a silver lining emerges in the sheen of aluminum.
The Dallas Morning News reports Laviage is better known as the scrap metal king of Houston, and after Harvey, he had to order a new half-million-dollar cutting machine just to keep up with the work. It can鈥檛 get here soon enough, said the owner of C&D Scrap Metal Recyclers.
In his yard stand mountains of bed frames, refrigerators, heating ducts, stoves, twisted metal roofs and other storm debris from Harvey. Mud-caked automobiles arrive every day.
So he needs a new cutting machine to pair with the other one in his yard that just sliced through an old Brinks truck like it was a watermelon. 鈥淭his is all hurricane material,鈥� Laviage, 62, said as he stood watching his employees cut and smash junk into tight silvery squares of metal.
鈥淚鈥檇 say business is up about 35 percent,鈥� said Laviage, who said he usually processes about a thousand tons of scrap a week.
Most of the increase is from stuff he wouldn鈥檛 normally be getting, such as refrigerators. Unfortunately for him, some of them still contain food. He鈥檚 sympathetic to people rushing to get bad refrigerators out of their homes. But by the time a fridge full of food gets to his yard, 鈥渋t鈥檚 a biohazard,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not equipped to be a disposal for old food.鈥�
The Houston native has been in the scrap metal business for nearly 40 years. He鈥檚 seen hurricanes come and go, but nothing as destructive as the storm that has hobbled southeast Texas over the last month. 鈥淚鈥檝e never seen water rise like it rose this time in my entire life,鈥� he said.
Laviage grew up in the Meyerland neighborhood of Houston, which has now flooded three times in three years. 鈥淚 play poker over there with three guys,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey all lost their homes.鈥�
He lives near downtown Houston at the top of a layered 15-foot slope. 鈥淚f the water had come up another 2 feet it would have been in my house.鈥�
He鈥檚 not sure there鈥檚 enough space in area landfills to handle all the city鈥檚 trash left by Harvey. 鈥淭here鈥檚 an overabundance,鈥� he said. Irma Reyes, a spokeswoman with the city鈥檚 solid waste management department, said there is enough landfill space in the Houston-Galveston region to handle all the debris.
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