Cape Breton contractor overloaded with repair work since flood

Allan Keating is in the midst of the biggest job he never wanted to have.

Parts of Cape Breton are in ruins, and he'sone of the contractors tasked with repairing entire neighbourhoods in the Sydney area afterfloodwaters rushed through homes and winds knocked trees into buildings on Monday.

• Cape Breton Regional Municipality sets up helpline for flood victims

"I've never seen anything like this in my life," Keating told CBC's Maritime Noon."It's just unbelievable the damage, I have customers calling me, crying and pleading for help."

Long hours for workers

That puts a strain on himand his employees at KeatingConstruction.

"I'm taking care of everyone I possibly can with the manpower we do have, we're working long hours, like really stretching it," said Keating.

There are homes so badly damaged their ownershave no place to live, making some desperate for help. To try and meet demand, Keating has hired new unskilled workers to help gut houses.

"Then we can get the qualified guys in to do what has to be done after that. Right now we're doing a lot of lugging of wet carpet, laminate floors, subfloors, gyprock...so that's all getting lugged out right now."

'I'll spread my bodies around'

Keating tries to work on the houses that have the most severe water damage first. He said if he gets the OK from the homeowner's insurance company he starts ripping up anything that suffered water damage.

"I do an assessment of what has to be done and then I run to the next place and I'll spread my bodies around."

He's hopeful that most people will be able to get back into their homes before winter.

Too much work, too little time

Still, there aren't enough bodies to go around, nor is there enough money to start paying for all the repair work that has to be done.

A harsh reality in an area where people have already lost so much.

"Like this one particular customer, her house is just totally destroyed, totally destroyed. It's months and months and months of work there and she doesn't have insurance," Keating said.

"It's sad."