Has Pittsburgh's population decline finally come to an end? After decades of searching for the magical elixir that would keep the young creative class in town, could the solution to Pittsburgh's population drain come from an altogether different source. Are we ready for the population migration that will change everything? Get ready Pittsburgh:

Here come the roofers.

The need is obvious. We have faced down mother nature and while we have endured, our homes have not. No gutter has survived unscathed and many a roof has been battered or worse. Once the insurance adjusters make it through each and every neighborhood the next call more than a few of us will be making will be to our friendly neighborhood roofer.

Long before spring arrives the supply of local roofers will be booked well into 2011. The work will still be there and the call will go out to roofers from far and wide. Makes you wonder where all these shingle specialist will come from. The winter onslaught has extended far beyond Pittsburgh which means there will be no untapped roofers in nearby Cleveland, Youngstown, Akron, or Erie. Any new roofers who will be coming to our rescue will have to come from farther afield

The new roofer mecca: Pittsburgh and environs? Who would have guessed.

"Roofers go where the jobs are, like workers in many occuptions," writes Lillian Mountweazel, Chief Economist of the National Roofers Contractors Association. "If business is slow in one part of the country, but growing elsewhere, you will see the migration of roofing workers and firms."

Which means Florida has been saying goodbye to their roofers for over a year. The national recession and foreclosure crisis has dampened, or deadened, what had been the one of the hottest housing markets in the nation. No new construction means minimal need for roofers in the Sunshine state, at least until hurricane season. The question is where do those roofers go once unemployment benefits run out.

As calamitous as the continuing snow and ice storm has been throughout the Northeast, it could be a lifeline for roofers hard hit by the recession. Some of the regions which have been off the radar in the industry for decades may become the nexus for growth. "Snow and ice are causing real damage to structures," Ms. Mountweazel said. "and most of the work required will not be what the typical homeowner can do themselves." Add in all the commerical work and more than a few public buildings needing emergency repairs and it could add up to a real boom.

For the workers she meant to add, not for our pocketbooks.

For Pittsburgh, the problem may not be the big demand for roofers in the spring, but the relative dearth of roofers here now. Low rates of new construction have kept the local roofing industry from growing for decades. Local roofing firms have mostly been surviving on replacement and repair work which makes up a small proportion of typical roofer demand. The local roofer workforce is really made of of senior workers who have been in the business for decades.

Big demand could mean big pay.

Experts point out that the costs of roofing repair can only go up in the circumstances. Christopher Briem, of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research puts it bluntly "There is going to be a premium to be paid to get a roofer to work on any projects in the near term".

So if Pittsburgh needs the roofers that Florida is shedding, how soon will they get here? "It could be soon," says Ed Burns, director of maintenance for Bethoven Development based in Pittsburgh's Polish Hill neighborhood, one of the largest apartment owners in the region, "I have work that I could contract for work right now, but am already being told folks are booked up for months". Mr. Burns says he is already looking to bring in contractors from outside the region, but even that is proving difficult.

So what does all of this mean for Pittsburgh

"Return to Pittsburgh" blogger Jim Russell (author of the blog formerly known as "Burgh Diaspora" and still at burghdiaspora.blogspot.com) is, as usual, bullish on Pittsburgh's future:

"Efforts to keep young mobile college graduates from leaving town never make sense. Here we have a group of workers who want to come to Pittsburgh. Let's make the most of it"

The Great Roofer migration has the potential to ripple through the lake in ways we can't yet predict, tweaking long-term demographic trends in subtle ways. Roofers, their families and chilren, eventually their children's children can tip the balance between growth and decline in Pittsburgh. We've sent tens of thousands of Pittsburghers to Florida over the past 25 years, mostly retirees looking for younger climes. If we get one roofer for every 3 elderly rtirees who have left for retirement communties in the South, it will be a population boom here.

A coordinated effort

A crisis always works to bring together the Pittsburgh power structure and get folks working together toward a common goal. The Allegheny Conference on Community Development knows all about the problems a potential roofer shortage could have for the region. "Roofers are a vital sector of the economy" says new CEO Dennis Yablonsky. The Conference briefly considered an ad campaign to convince the snow and ice to melt from local roofs, but "we just didn't have the budget" acknowledges Yablonsky. The budget would have only allowed for airing on local cable outlets. Presumably mother nature only watches the network news.

But the Conference is not standing by and is working to get ahead of the curve. Former ACCD CEO Mike Langley has been retained to head to Florida where he lived for many years and liason with local Chambers of Commerces in Orlanda, Tampa and Tallahasee to facilitate the movement of roofers to the North. "We will do what we can to make this happen as quickly as possible", Langley added by e-mail. Also helping out the Conference is considering air services that may be needed. Ken Zapinski, Allegheny Conference senior vice president of the transportation and infrastructure program, said chartering "Air Roofer may be an option", if the flow of roofers into the region becomes large enough. Though he adds "we may route them through Paris to take advantage of our direct connection there".

Snow and ice are not new of course, but a whole generation has gone without seeing any similar storm in Pittsburgh, let alone one causing so much damage. Younger yinzers are learning anew what winter means. There is even a Twitter hashtag, #icegutter, chronicling the experience with ice on the roof nationally. It is not just Pittsburghers 'tweeting' about their ice gutter experience, but we do make up a large part of the chorus. One Twit going by the name IsalysForLife, presumably a Pittsburgher or diasporan, 'tweeted' yesterday "The ice is now holding up the roof. What happens when it melts?".

Good question.