‘Rising to the Challenge’: Rebuilding after Hurricane Ian
Several TRSA members are back serving customers in the areas impacted by Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm that made landfall in the Fort Myers, FL, area packing devastating 150-mile-per-hour winds.
One such member that has facilities in the area impacted by Hurricane Ian is Crown Linen Service, a hospitality launderer based in Miami that has plants in Fort Myers and Haines City, FL. While its Haines City facility regained power relatively quickly, going back online on Friday, Oct. 2, it took the Fort Myers plant far more time to get back to normalcy, with the plant having just got its power back on Thursday, Oct. 13.
Drew Tanski, COO, Crown Linen, praised the company’s staff for their dedication in difficult times. “Despite this difficult and unprecedented storm impact, our teams rose to the occasion balancing what faced them to get our plants back online and taking care of their families and residences,” Tanski said. “Fantastic communication, significant logistical coordination and great collaboration from this team allowed our operations not only to continue with no major disruption from servicing our customers, but also allowed us to take on some emergency service from businesses whose provider or in-house operation could not operate. As a team and company, we faced adversity head on and stepped up to the challenge. It was impressive to watch everyone come together to do whatever it took to get our operations back online.”
UniFirst Corp. also had several facilities impacted by Hurricane Ian. “First, we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the immense devastation caused by Hurricane Ian throughout Florida and in the many communities that we call home,” said Asit Goel, vice president of marketing, UniFirst. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the people who lost loved ones because of the storm. UniFirst locations that were in the path of Hurricane Ian included Fort Myers, Tampa, Orlando and Daytona Beach.”
Goel noted that the company’s operations in Florida were shut down for only a few days with little to no damage. The Fort Myers facility lost power for several days. “Ensuring the safety of our employee team partners was our No. 1 priority,” Goel said. “We’d like to thank all our team partners in the Fort Myers, Tampa, Orlando and Daytona Beach locations for mobilizing precisely when needed to prepare for the storm despite the many challenges they encountered. After the storm was over, our teams remained dedicated to ensuring that the many businesses we serve in that region are getting what they need to open.”
Alsco Uniforms has six operations in the area impacted by the storm, including a service center in Fort Myers and processing plants in Naples, Sarasota, Saint Petersburg, Tampa and Orlando. “We weathered it pretty good,” said Mike Larson, regional manager, Alsco. “We didn’t have any major damage. Just minor damage, you know, windows and some sheet metal and stuff from roll-up doors.”
Larson credited the company’s ability to weather the storm to its preparation beforehand. “Well, I think all the preparation we do ahead of time is key and running the routes a day ahead, as well as covering all the machines,” Larson said. “Because what happens is windows will blow out and water comes in. So, we put tarps on all the machines and the electrical control panels. If you get a broken window then the rain will come in sideways and we can get a tremendous amount of water in the plants. However, in this storm, we seemed to weather it pretty good. We didn’t have any real flooding in the plants, but oftentimes you can just get rain coming in. And it messes up the controls and stuff on the machinery. So just covering everything up and preparing, I think that helped us get back in business faster.”
Each of the companies is assisting staff members impacted by the storm and its damage, with financial incentives and support as they deal with the rebuilding process.