Since 1992
Print and digital marketing
By Robert Fogg
It wasn’t a forecast I wanted to hear. The weatherman said, “strong south and southeast wind Sunday night into Monday.” And, here I was, preparing for a one-week Disney vacation with my wife, youngest daughter and two grandkids.
Plans had been made months in advance and could not be canceled. We were to fly out on Sunday morning. I thought, “Whatever Mother Nature throws at us, my team can handle it without me.”
Strong wind from the south and southeast are rare in these parts. Over the years, trees adapt to their environment. They grow a strong root system on the north and west sides as they are constantly being tested by winds from that direction. Trees that are weakly rooted on that side are weeded out on a routine basis, but trees and forests are rarely tested from the south and southeast.
As I woke up at Disney on Monday morning, I wondered of there ws any damage back home. I was soon to find out.
My office had lost power, phones and Internet. Even our crew cellphones were out. We could, however, send and receive intermittent text messages, but not reliably. But it was discovered that one of our team had a cellphone on a different carrier, one that was working. We set up a system where I would access our voicemails via the Internet from my hotel room, and text them to the one working cellphone.
Jan, in our office, called each customer from the same phone. It was a painfully slow and frustrating process. That morning, while my family went off to Disney, I took and forwarded 48 emergency messages that came in via voicemail, email, Facebook and the contact form on our website. It made me wonder what would happen when people got their phones back.
We have a backup generator for power, and little by little our communication capability improved. We found a second cellphone that worked and we dedicated one to receiving info and the other to making calls. Later in the day, our Internet came back online, and eventually our phone system. Fortunately, we have two-way radios for communication between the team, which was a big help. Eventually, we were back up to speed and operating as normally as possible under the circumstances.
I signed off and started to enjoy our vacation. I heard very little from my team the rest of the week. They are seasoned team and very good at what they do, and good about not bothering me when I’m on vacation. As I write this article on my first day back, Nov. 5, I can only imagine the work they went through in an effort to service our customers.
I would like to acknowledge the hard work that was put in by, not only my team, but all the workers at the utility companies, fire departments, road crews, and anyone else that chipped in to help bring life back to normal after the storm. Your hard work is appreciated!
— The author is general manager of Q-Team Tree Service in Naples and is also a licensed arborist. He can be reached at RobertFogg@Q-Team.com or 207-693-3831.
