Original Post: LinkedIn | Tommy Webster | October 9, 2018
Disaster Response is a unique market in the construction industry – catastrophic storms, rockslides, and fires aren’t planned to the last detail years in advance, and they affect people quite literally in their own backyards. Debris clean-up is unpredictable, sensitive work, and being successful requires tenacity, experience, and constant readiness. Phillips & Jordan’s (P&J) first major disaster project was Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and since then we have created a readiness infrastructure that has helped make us a go-to name in disaster response services.
Our management team has decades of combined experience in disaster work, and because we are a full-time construction company–not just a disaster specialist—we keep these skills sharp on other P&J jobs year round. When the call comes in, day or night, we answer and immediately begin examining the scope of work to determine where to pool our resources. During storm seasons, we proactively track major weather events and use our decades-long industry relationships to preemptively organize subcontractors and equipment even before landfall. Managing a major disaster job is a lot like building a new company from scratch overnight, in areas that, by definition, have damaged infrastructure and often lack electricity and other services. We frequently hire and onboard several hundred new employees and subcontractors in a few weeks to meet the demands of the project.
We’ve faced treacherous terrain cleaning up rock slides and devastated infrastructure in the wake of hurricanes. Our automated debris management system led the way in developing nation-wide standards and streamlining recordkeeping. We understand the challenges of disaster recovery work, because we’ve faced them over and over again. We’re currently on the ground in the Carolinas to help municipalities recover from Hurricane Florence’s devastating flooding, and our experts are studying Hurricane Michael’s approach, preparing for our response. When disaster strikes, P&J is a proven problem solver, a proven innovator, a proven solution.