California Redwood Performed Miracles in Rebuilding Hurricane

Damage in Houston-Galveston Are.

Many stories have been told and published concerning the great tropical hurricane that ravaged the HoustonGalveston area on the night of July 28th; and of splendid efforts that have been made by building material people to assist in repairing and rebuilding the storm-damaged territory; but the story of what California Redwood did is a masterpiece

Tremendous damage was done by the wind that sometimes reached 130 miles per hour to structures of all sorts; and no type of building things suffered more than wooden cooling towers. On a'ccount of the very character of their construction they have little to offer a great wind in the way of resistance. So countless small cooling towers all over the storm area were mashed and smashed and knocked around. Likewise some of the very largest ones. And some of the most serious events of this character was the damage to big cooling towers on several of the oil refineries, where they are busily engaged in turning out petroleum products vital to the war effort.

The Fluor Corporation, of Los Angeles, California, is the biggest fabricator of woqden cooling towers in the world. doing an international business of this sort. When the call from several storm-damaged refineries went to Fluor the very night of the storm, they got busy and performed some miracles perhaps never before attempted in that particular line. They jumped their plant operation from 48 to 68 hours per week, and intensified their work. They more than doubled their normal production. They went to fabricating California Redwood into cooling towers of certain specifications, in knock-down form. With Government aid they got express cars almost out of the blue, and they went to

Stress Grade Lumber Specifications

As a result of numerous inquiries, the Conservation Division of WPB announced that printed copies of national emergency specifications for ihe design, fabrication and erection of stress grade lumber and its fastenings for buildings will be available about October 1, 1943.

loading these cars to the roof with this fabricated Redwood material. The storm was the night of Jaly 8th. On July 30th they were already moving express cars loaded with this material toward Houston. By August 13th they had delivered on the various jobs in the storm area SIXI'Y CARLOADS of Redwood cooling tower lumber, all shipped by express. They claim it was the biggest express shipment in the world's history. Besides that, they shipped ten cars by ordinary freight, making a total of seventy carloads of cooling tower lumber, all shipped in fifteen days. In board feet it amounted to about 900,000 feet of lumber. All of it was fabricated and ready for their own crews of men to erect and fit into place. The biggest damage was to the Shell oil refinery. They put fifty-six cars of Redwood into the Shell cooling tower and had it in operation in just three weeks from the time of the storm. Other large oil refineries in that area got the rest of the seventy cars. The sixty cars of express shipped lumber was all delivered in Houston fifteen days after ordered, all cut and fitted and ready for use. The fastest express and passenger trains hauled these shipments.

The miracle was made possible by the fact that they carry in stock at all times great quantities of Redwood lumber from The Pacific Lumber Company, of San Francisco, and with their crews of trained men and their systematized plan of operations, they were able to fabricate and ship this stock in a small fraction of normal time. The Fluor Corporation has its home in Los Angeles, and is headed by Peter Fluor, who built a world-wide business from a shoestring start. Their performance in this hurricane emergency is probably an all time world's record for an industrial efficiency.

Home On Leave

Capt. Fred Nutter, U. S. Marine Corps, owner of the Nutter Lumber Co., Pomona, Calif., was recently home on a 10-day leave. He has been on active duty since September, 1942, and has been stationed at Dutch Harbor since last October.