12
THE DAVEY BULLETIN
|
May/June 2024
MISSION
SURGERY COMPANY, R/C RESPOND TO CALIFORNIA STORMS
Of the crews, Martinez said, "They're an all A-team with
a lot of humble people working on it, and I'm grateful
to be part of that team. We have great communication.
Everything went very smoothly."
Rios said the Lewis Tree Service, a Davey company,
Residential/Commercial services office helped by providing
an employee and a crane.
"A large Monterey cypress tree had fallen on a house and
taken some power lines down with it," Mike Hernandez,
district manager, Lewis Tree Service, said. "Surgery called
on us to bring our crane down. My brother David
Hernandez, sales and service coordinator, was the operator
who ran the crane while on site," Hernandez added.
Ten employees from the Lewis Tree Service office tackled
around 13 emergency jobs for their clients on the first
Sunday when the storms hit the Santa Cruz area.
"We refer to it as being in triage-mode when we're getting
such a high volume of emergency calls that we respond
to the worst of it first. A total of 22 employees tackled
additional emergencies for the four weeks that followed,"
Hernandez said.
Strong winds and heavy rain downed trees in Monterey and
Santa Cruz Counties in California earlier this year.
Raul Rios, account manager, PG&E Southern Coast account,
Davey Tree Surgery Company, said a few different storms
hit over a two-week stretch. "Storms would last for around
three days, then we'd have a two-to-three-day break. We'd
still be doing clean up from one storm, then another would
arrive. Rain-soaked soil resulted in trees down everywhere,"
Rios said.
On any given day, 70 to 150 employees on the PG&E
Southern Coast account worked to remove trees from lines,
concentrated in the San Lorenzo Valley, Carmel Valley, and
Pebble Beach areas.
Gustavo Martinez, supervisor, PG&E Southern Coast
account, oversaw 16 three-person crews.
"Compared to last year's atmospheric rivers, our response
was different this year for sure. There were more people
coordinating. We were able to split areas and keep track
of what was going on for each job and follow up with each
other. We continue to improve," Martinez said.
An uprooted tree falls on a house
in Sacramento, California.
Inset: A tree falls through a
house in Santa Cruz, California.
