Davey Tree Flipbooks

9 January/February 2019 | THE DAVEY BULLETIN 300 EMPLOYEES RESPOND About 300 Davey employees responded to Hurricane Michael recovery efforts to assist about 100 employees local to the path of the storm. Johnny Page, area manager, Gulf region, Eastern Utility services, sent 65 of his team members to Florida and southern Georgia. Page's crews were on loan from Glades Electric Cooperative, Tampa Electric, Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative and Sumter Electric Cooperative. The clients receiving storm recovery help from Page's crews were Gulf Power, the City of Tallahassee, Florida Public Utilities and Three Notch Electric Cooperative. Page, who during his 23-year Davey career has responded to storms in the panhandle before, said he knew the crews would be working in mostly rural areas with limited access to supplies or lodging. "I met personally with every work group we sent out and explained to them that it was not going to be a 'normal' storm response," Page said. "They would likely be sleeping in tents, and there was a good possibility of eating cold burritos daily. I wanted to make sure they were up for that as part of their volunteer efforts. And everyone said they were up for it." Page proved right. Crew housing consisted of large, military-style tents with cots lined up next to each other – so close crews were rubbing elbows with the person next to them. To try to alleviate the discomfort, Page said he provided non-perishable snacks and other items to the crews. For many, the storm response lasted almost a month. Most of Page's crews were working in rural areas clearing trees from power lines. But one crew worked in Panama City, normally a hotbed of tourist activity, where they encountered entire neighborhoods flattened by the storm. "This is by far the most collateral damage that I have seen from any storm," Page said. "It was miles and miles of trees snapped off at 20 feet high and broken right over." MILITARY CALLS DAVEY FOR SUPPORT Commercial Landscape Services (CLS) responded to a client's call for help at two military bases on the panhandle. Balfour Beatty Communities, which operates residential housing for Tyndall Air Force Base and Naval Support Activities Panama City, called Davey for help clearing debris from the hurricane. Blane Pshigoda, vice president of operations, government/projects, said military officials were so impressed with Davey's response to the residential neighborhoods on the base that they quickly asked Davey to assist with storm recovery throughout the entire base. "I think that's a testament to what a great job we did on the housing side," Pshigoda said. Tom Freeman, regional manager, government/projects, said the recovery work consisted primarily of removing whole trees blown over or snapped in half by the storm. "At Tyndall, a conservative estimate is that 85 percent of the vegetation is on the ground now," Freeman said. "Literally you can see miles of mature pine trees just snapped in half like they were toothpicks." All the damaged or downed trees needed to be removed are being processed at a central debris area, where they are being turned into mulch to be used on the base. Davey is expected to continue working at the Panama City location well into 2019. A MONTH'S WORTH OF WORK By the time Hurricane Michael made it to North Carolina it had weakened to a tropical storm. Scott Wyatt, district manager, Greensboro office, said it still packed a punch – causing enough damage to have them responding to storm-related calls for a month. "It did throw some trees down," Wyatt said. "We had a crane running with us for about a week." The Greensboro office managed the workload all in-house, including responses to several large universities with big trees down across their campuses. "We had several clients get hit, but the storm damage wasn't too widespread," Wyatt said. 9 January/February 2019 | THE DAVEY BULLETIN Left: Heavy equipment operators working for Davey pile up debris cleared on military bases in the Florida panhandle after Hurricane Michael.

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