8/13/2019 Blown Away: Dealers Dive In To Help Sandy-Struck Region

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Current Events

Mobilizing resources to help customers andcommunities in a crisis is something dealers do best whichis why one of the most frustrating immediate outcomes ofHurricane/Superstorm Sandy were, for some New York- andNew Jersey-area dealers, the debilitating challenges of

communication disruptions and fuel shortages. For example,at Tim Watters Hoffman Equipment, a multiline crane andheavy equipment distributor headquartered in Piscataway,N.J., running out of diesel fuel for service trucks had thecompany resorting to siphoning fuel out of machines in orderto keep service vehicles dispatched. Thats when we really started begging for [our fuelprovider] to come by, said Watters, an AED officer slatedto be chairman in 2014. Finally after four phone calls ofbegging he brought fuel to us. The bigger problem was ouremployees trying to get to work who had no fuel in theircars. Our fuel provider felt so bad for delaying our dieseldelivery that one day he send a gas truck in here loaded withfuel and he let all our employees fill up their cars and thatwas a relief for everybody! It was probably the best perkeveryone got all year. Damage at Hoffman Equipments main office was minor,says Watters; not exceeding $10,000 he estimates, causedby a tree blown down on a fence. And with the exceptionof his Marlboro, N.Y., branch, his facilities all retained powerand reopened Tuesday morning at 7 after the storm passedthrough the previous night.

There were pockets of neighborhoods that had power andby some stroke of good fortune our company [headquarters]was in one of those pockets, said Watters. But four hours

from where the storm came ashore people were still losingpower it shows you the extent and range of the storm.

Loss of Internet and e-mail access was the more cripplingissue during the first week following Sandy. For HoffmanEquipment, Internet comes through cable, Watters said, so

the company was without it till Friday that week.Thanks to good fortune and good emergency backupplanning, the lights and Internet were on for all 10 ofModern Groups locations across eastern Pennsylvania, NewJersey and Delaware, but Chairman Dave Griffith says thatcellular communication was the biggest challenge with whichthe company wrestled in the storms aftermath. A forklift,power and equipment dealership based in Bristol, Pa.,Modern Group runs on MobileFrame, says Griffith, which isdependent on an Internet wireless solution; Modern patchedtheir problem by distributing mobile hot cards to staff, butthe company will be evaluating how to solve the issue long-term, perhaps with radio backup. We dont have an answeryet, said Griffith.

Help Thy Neighbor

Extensive as Moderns inventory is, the needs have beengreat and unceasing. Griffith says the company has experi-enced an outpouring of equipment-to-the rescue from otherdealers to the tune of 180 forklifts. Literally I was able to calldown and overnight had rental trucks coming at me fromOhio, from New England, from Virginia; they literally rolled inovernight, said Griffith.

He added that Modern has been dropping generatorsto competitors, as well, and sent fleet to other regions

Blown Away:Dealers Dive In To

Help Sandy-Struck RegionShort-term, Huber-chargedrental and sales activity

could settle in to a long-termnegative for the industry.

BY KIM PHELAN

8/13/2019 Blown Away: Dealers Dive In To Help Sandy-Struck Region

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December 2012 | Construction Equipment Distribution | www.cedmag.com |

Current Event

during times of emergency.As youd expect, the products in greatest demand are

generators, chippers, forklifts, skid-steers and loaders. Therental business for anyone near the scene is at euphorialevels, not that anyones gloating about it. Hoffman Equip-ment is tracking at 35-40 percent for rentals attributed tocleanup; Modern was going 24/7 round the clock on rentaland sold two million portable power units in a week. Some 1,700 miles away in San Antonio, Holt Cat wasamong numerous Cat dealers around the U.S. that mobi-lized to help provide power to Sandy-struck regions. Holtsnational response team deployed power generators andservice technicians to New York and New Jersey, restoringtemporary and permanent power in the areas. The companyhas also sold and rented more than 40 dewatering pumpsand 100 light towers.

Closer to the devastation, H.O. Penn, the Cat dealer based inPoughkeepsie, N.Y., kept its rental operation working through

the weekend to get generator sets out to customers, report-ing its entire inventory of 145 gen sets all on rent as of Oct.30. The company deployed technicians onsite at 23 customerlocations to provide round-the-clock support, as well.

The demand for rental of heavy Caterpillar equipment hasalso increased as the cleanup and the infrastructure restora-tion process begins, said President of H.O. Penn Jeff Mitch-ell. Impacts were pretty widespread, he added. A numberof our employees had damage to homes, in varying degrees.Due to flooding in lower Manhattan, our phone service was

disrupted in two of our branches. We had to quickly developwork-arounds to overcome the problem it created so wecould continue to take care of our customers.

Wind-related tree damage has been unbelievable, saysGriffith. And the lingering, debilitating loss of power onresidents and businesses could continue till mid-December,he said. The generator business is going to be white hotfor months.

Equipment replacement is kicking in, as dealers arewitnessing just how many customers suffered damage ortotal loss to machinery left too close to the shores. Im alittle surprised customers didnt pull equipment back fromthe water, but I think it caught a lot of people by surprise,Griffith added.

Sad Truths

Watters relayed that a customer in Breezy Point, N.Y., aparticularly devastated neighborhood in Queens, lost his

home, as did his son who works with him and anotheremployee; nevertheless they purchased four machines to dostorm cleanup work in their community.

There are a lot of homes that will need to be taken down,said Watters. Theres some demolition work for sure thatsgoing to happen, but the flip side of that story is all the peoplein those homes that are going to be displaced, all the low-lyingareas of New Jersey, where hundreds of thousands of peoplelive right near the water. I dont know what the numbers are,but there are thousands of homes that are destroyed.

Its not like the kinds of dramatic things that are goodfor a picture, but theyve all had four or five feet of water

in them, and even more, on the first floor, so theyre justdestroyed. They think theyre drying them out but theyre allbeing condemned; they have to come down, Watters said.

Griffith estimates the demolition work alone could go onfor six months to a year.

Was it flood? Was it wind? Were going to learn a lotabout flood insurance, he predicted grimly. Im concernedthat some companies wont open.

Ken Simonson, chief economist at Associated GeneralContractors of America (AGC), echoed that probability,adding that it will also take time for insurance proceeds to beparlayed into construction.

A number of businesses will not reopen, Simonson said,and other businesses that were ready to expand or occupynew space and trigger investment by developers, theyregoing to postpone or cancel those plans.

And similarly with homeowners while it is relatively easyto count the number of homes that were destroyed or willhave to be demolished, that doesnt necessarily translate intoone-for-one replacement, Simonson continued. The netimpact, therefore, on the construction industry, even withinthe region, will be small, and measured over a longer periodof time, negative. I think any time you get massive destruc-tion of wealth of any type youre going to be slowing downeconomic activity and with that, construction activity.

Creative Kindness

While donations of money are vital to meet the widestswath of need in a crisis, the management of ModernGroup understands that people also like to give tangible,more personal things to help victims of disasters. And so,in cooperation with its manufacturing partners Bandit,Hyster, Generac and Terex, the company launched itsSock It To Sandy campaign to collect new socks, newhats and new gloves, which will be distributed quickly tothose in need by The Salvation Army. The Modern Group Edison, N.J. branch, which is near-by the New Jersey Shore, one of the hardest hit regions,will serve as its Sock It To Sandy headquarters.

In a letter to customers, employees and suppliers,Modern Group President Paul Ferrell said, As theweather turns colder and the days since the stormincrease, the devastation of the impact of Sandy multi-plies. The outpouring of kindness has been phenom-enal. Relief efforts from throughout the nation arehelping restore power little by little, but the cleanup willtake months and years. In the meanwhile, thousands arestill without basic electricity and heat.

The company collected donations through Nov. 26 asCEDwas going to press.