(Bloomberg) -- Craig Reeves had been inRockport, Texas, barely 48 hours when he ducked into thegloomy threshold of the condominium, which was darkened by blindspulled before Hurricane Harvey and filled with a humid, mildewyfunk.

Reeves, a catastrophe claims adjuster for State Farm,crunched over glass shards in his steel-toed boots, stepping over awet towel, a bottle of Febreze and a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s“Walden.” He made his way past the kitchen, its cupboard doorscurling, and into the living room with its soaked teddy bear,upended sewing machine, dog kennel and deck chairs. Reeves liftedthe shades, letting in the sunlight that would help him takeaccount of the destruction of Jeannie Jurischk’s home.

Related: Returning home after HurricaneHarvey

Adjusters are on the front lines

Hurricane Harvey inflicted damage on 1.7 million homes that couldtop $11.5 billion in insured losses, accordingto CoreLogicInc., and workers like Reeves are on the front lines. StateFarm, the biggest private home and auto insurer inTexas, alone had 32,500 property claims to handle as ofMonday. It deployed more than 1,000 adjusters to the Gulf Coast,and erected a disaster tent, portable toilets and asatellite-equipped recreational vehicle along the freeway in CorpusChristi, 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Rockport.

While the outside world sees storms as televised tableaux,adjusters like Reeves focus on the minutiae of destruction, fromwater stains and mold specks on a ceiling to a roof sheared off toa concrete pad where a single house once stood. Adjusters are oftenreconstruction’s harbingers, and they witness communities reelingand people at their frailest.

“Everything that you’re involved with is destruction and badtimes,” Reeves said. “There’s no break from it.”

Uninhabitable homes

Rockport, near where Harvey made landfall Aug. 25, is a fishingvillage that also attracts tourists and retirees, some who live inmillion-dollar homes along a pristine marina. This weekend, though,the town was without electricity and water, and many residentslacked any shelter. Jurischk’s condominium unit was just the firstof about 50 cases handed to Reeves after his 1,200-mile drive fromSilvis, Illinois. Nearly all of his cases involved homes rendereduninhabitable.

On Saturday, he met Jurischk for the first time outside, whereconcrete tiles, stucco siding and nails littered the lawn. Theswimming pool was filled with brown water, and towering heaps ofdowned oaks had limbs snapped like toothpicks.

Related: 5 things to know about insurance coverage afterHurricane Harvey

“Do you live here?” Reeves asked as the woman with cropped blondhair, black shorts and yellow flip-flops walked up.

“Well, I used to,” Jurischk replied.

In the next two hours, Reeves would reduce the condo’s soddendisarray to a tidy rendering in red ballpoint ink, a cache ofdigital photographs, a to-do list and a reassurance that this, too,shall pass. Later, he would spend hours uploading his findings intoa computer to calculate the number that homeowners care about most:the sum the insurance company owes them.

Reeves, 39, popped his red pen out from underneath his red StateFarm ball cap and took up a clipboard with a pad of graphpaper.

“Have you been upstairs yet?” he asked Jurischk. They walked upthe beige carpeted steps covered in glass and leaves. He whippedout his Bosch laser measure and ran its red light over her bedroom,took photos with his iPhone and sketched the floor plan.

3-dimensional computer models

Later, in his company-issued van, he would turn that data into athree-dimensional computer model. That would be the basis forestimating damages and “adjusting” the homeowner’s claim.

The white Ford Transit is Reeves’s mobile office, completewith a swivel chair, desktop and laptop computers, aprinter, rubber and roofing boots, hip waders, a coolerstocked with Gatorade, a bag of beef jerky, two bottles of bugspray, and, for the rare slow moments, two fishing poles.

“You don’t know what to prepare for,” Reeves said

Related: Harvey cold reshape how and where American buildtheir homes

Hurricanes as large as Harvey defy most preparations. At first,Jurischk, who grew up in coastal Port Arthur, assumed she wouldeasily ride out the storm. But as the hurricane grew, shepacked in a bag four pairs of shorts, four tank tops and threepairs of flip flops — her habitual beach attire. She headed toPearland, a Houston suburb, where her daughter had a friendwho took them in, along with two dogs and a cat.

There was no respite. By Monday, Houston was flooding. Jurischkand her daughter were rescued at 11 p.m., carried out in the backof a dump truck. They took shelter at a recreation center, thenPearland High School and then were bused almost 200 miles north toBelton. There, they rented a car and made their way back toRockport, where they would stay with friends.

Jurischk broke down crying.

“They’re mostly happy tears,” she said. “I just think we had somany blessings.”

She was hoping for one more.

Finding shelter

“I’ve got to find housing,” Jurischk said. “We’ll see what Craighas to say, and what my options are. I don’t know, it’s like tryingto figure out what’s ...” Her words trailed off as she touched herbedding. “It’s wet. You can feel it here.”

“We’re gonna start working our way down the steps, ma’am,”Reeves called out.

She walked by a bookshelf lined with seashells and stocked withtitles including “14,000 Things to be Happy About.”

“I don’t know where to start getting this place cleaned up,” shesaid. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

'Hard for everybody, very emotional strain'

After two hours, Reeves wrapped up his investigation. Sweat drippedfrom his brow and his shirt was damp. Although Reeves hadworked most of the last decade’s monster storms — Katrina, Sandy,Matthew — Harvey’s enormity was only beginning to sink in.

Related: Staying safe: A Hurricane Harvey survival guide forclaim adjusters

“This is hard for everybody, but for us too, it’s a veryemotional strain,” he said.

Reeves grew up near Bloomington, Illinois, the corporateheadquarters for State Farm, which got its start nearly a centuryago as an auto insurer for farmers. Reeves’s grandmother worked forthe company as a roller-skating office clerk. While in junior high,Reeves’s home burned to the ground, and State Farm helped thefamily find temporary housing.

“I’m not unfamiliar with losing everything you’ve got,” hesaid.

In 1999, his first job at State Farm was dealing with propertylost in house fires. When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, he wasdeployed for the first time as a catastrophe claims adjuster. Sincethen he’s been sent to dozens of disasters. At home, where he lefthis wife and their 3-week-old baby, he keeps a bag packed sincehe’s often deployed with less than a day’s notice.

In Jurischk’s living room, she and her daughter gathered aroundhim, hanging on every word.

'We'll move forward from here'

He explained that while the walls appeared salvageable, theceilings would have to be pulled out and replaced. The carpet,while it didn’t get too wet, was embedded with glass. They shouldmake lists of what personal belongings were salvageable. Clothesshould be dry-cleaned before being discarded, and they were to sendthe bill to him. The biggest question Jurischk had was where wouldthey stay and how long would all this take?

“I’m gonna start building up an estimate,” Reeves said. “We’llmove forward from here.”