Storm Damage Restoration

You see the images on the news and on the media and on TV, and it never does justice to what is truly happening when you arrive on the site of a hurricane. You know, I’ve been doing this 25 years and I can tell you that the flooding damage from Hurricane Ian, particularly in Fort Myers Beach, was second to none. (gentle music) It’s tough to see, and to get there was extremely difficult. We had to launch from the beach and swim ashore to gain access to the clients and their properties. And when a hurricane is about to make landfall, you look at where it’s going to make landfall, and really how you’re going to gain access and what challenges you might come across. And we start looking at that stuff days prior to a hurricane making landfall. You gotta really think outside the box on how you can get there as quick and as safely as possible to really assess and see the damage up close, so you know kind of what you’re coming into before you actually put boots on the ground. Once we get to a property, our first process is really looking at securing it for safety and mitigating further damage. In other words, if the roof is blown off, we need to get a tarp on quickly ’cause as it’s gonna rain, it’s gonna create additional damage. Of course, in the case of Hurricane Ian on Sanibel, that started with, “Well, we’re gonna need barges to get, you know, earth moving equipment and lifts to be able to get these large trees off of buildings and out of lots before we can even begin to get ground personnel on site to even get close to the buildings.” You know, there’s always different types of challenges you gotta overcome, and we’ve got a fantastic team that has done this many, many years, and we’ve learned from every storm something we could do better next time. And that’s one of the things that we focus on, is we make sure we get together after an event and talk about the challenges that we had, so that we’re better prepared to face those challenges. Our biggest assistance to our client is to help relieve stress, it’s just good, solid communication on conditions and efforts, working as a team with the insurance company, and with a team with their consultants, their building consultants and engineers and surveyors, to really put together a solid plan to get them back in the business. There’s nothing more rewarding in my line of work and our line of work here First Onsite than when a client does call and thanks you for the work and for what your teams have done. And I make sure that that message is heard by every single person that is on every single job site ’cause it cannot happen without every single one of us doing our part to make sure that those expectations are exceeded. It is very, very rewarding in the end. (gentle music)