The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Bahamian building materials costs and availability could come under pressure from post-Hurricane Idalia reconstruction on Florida’s west coast, local suppliers have warned.

Anthony Roberts, City Lumber Yard’s general manager, told Tribune Business that any fall-out for The Bahamas will take several weeks to determine until the rebuilding effort starts in earnest. He added that, post-COVID, the delivery time for certain product orders has increased but the industry has largely adapted to this.

“It does take a little longer than it used to. The basic supplies like plywood and sheeting takes longer than it used to, but we have been able to adjust to it,” he said, adding of Idalia: “We would anticipate some supplies becoming a little more or lead times being a little longer on shingles once they get into their recovery and rebuilding, but it will be a few weeks until we feel that.

“We are just trying to keep our inventories at a level. We are okay now. We try to keep a little more on hand for the hurricane.”

Brent Burrows general manager of CBS Bahamas (Commonwealth Building Supplies), said one order suffered a “delay” last week because one of his supplier’s warehouses in Jacksonville had to close due to Idalia’s passage.

“We have our other shipping location in Miami, so we have no ill effects right now on shipping, but I don’t know what’s going to happen within the next couple of weeks or a month as far as supply issues are concerned because you know any time someone gets hit hard with a natural disaster demand starts to go up on things like plywood and shingles,” he said.

Besides last week’s delay, CBS expects building materials supplies to run smoothly for the remainder of hurricane season. “We’re fully stocked and we have more things coming in. We just had a huge supply of hurricane shutters come in a couple of weeks ago, so we are ready,” Mr Burrows said. Pricing has “settled down somewhat” on building materials, and CBS is “not seeing huge jumps”. Some have even gone down.

Christopher Lleida, Premier Importers’ chief executive, said that he met with one of his suppliers two weeks and added: “The storm hit the west coast of Florida and we don’t do very much business in that direction.

“I know there is a lot of damage on the west coast of Florida, and I was thinking that it might disrupt shipping and, also with Hurricane Franklin, that it may cause disruptions but we have not seen anything like that.”