Dan Standley has one request: “Tell them all, ‘We’re Back.’” The owner of Dan’s Landscaping & Lawn Care, Terrytown, La., was the gracious host of visitors to the Lawn & Landscape Weed & Insect Management Seminars – South in mid-August. Little did attendees to the event and facility tour know that The Big Easy would be soaked with hurricane and flood waters in just a matter of weeks. With his facility located just 5 miles outside of New Orleans – and only about 5 feet above sea level – Standley’s business could well have been a casualty of Hurricane Katrina, but thankfully beat the odds.
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“We have some roof and siding damage at the shop, but we’ve got power and everything’s running now,” Standley told Lawn & Landscape magazine. All he’s waiting for now is the return of more employees. “So far, four of our 12 employees are back and I’ve got them working as much as I can during the week, and then leaving them the weekends to get all their personal needs straightened out. We’ve got two more guys returning on Monday, so we’re getting back to business.”
Standley says the challenge with his employees is that they evacuated the region before Katrina made landfall, but now have nowhere to come “home” to. In fact, Standley said he set up “Hotel Dan’s Landscaping” for a short time, turning part of the company’s front office areas into sleeping quarters until his workers were able to secure housing. “We had to get a little creative on housing for a while,” Standley says, “but we had a generator and an air conditioner and did the best we could for our employees.”
STORIES OF KATRINA. Meanwhile, on the north side of flooded Lake Pontchartrain, Standley says his family’s home was also spared the flooding that the New Orleans area experienced, sustaining mostly tree and wind damage. Ever the optimist, “I ended up with a skylight in my office,” Standley joked.
Prior to the hurricane, Standley says he and his family temporarily relocated to Montgomery, Ala., for a couple of weeks to stay with relatives. “The town welcomed us with open arms,” Standley says. “We were able to enroll our kids in school and the residents there were so generous.”
| DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH INSURANCE? |
Dan Standley, owner of Dan's Landscaping & Lawn Care, Terrytown, La., was recently forced to close up shop for a short period during the Aug. 29 landfall and immdeiate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thankfully, Standley says he was prepared for the worst, including carrying insurance coverages such as business interruption insurance. "Business interruption insurance basically pays for your losses of profits after a disaster," explains Mark Weisburger, of Weisburger Insurance Brokerage, White Plains, N.Y. "This is the coverage that will let you continue to pay rent, compensate your employees, and cover your lost profits for the time that your business is unable to function." Weisburger says business interruption coverage is something all business owners should consider – not just those operating in disaster-prone regions. "Our offices are on the fourth floor of an office building in White Plains and we've never had a hurricane here – but we could have a fire tomorrow," Weisburger says. "It's not just about being somewhere susceptible to disasters; it's about making sure your covered for this particular type of peril." Weisburger also refers to "extra expense" insurance policies, which are similar. If a fire damages your facility, for instance, you may be able to move your business across the street; however, that costs money. Extra expense policies cover things like getting new phone lines installed at the new location, or paying rent on a temporary office space while yours is being repaired. Weisburger says some business interruption or extra expense coverage may be included in your regular business insurance policies, but that contractors can purchase additional coverage if their so inclined. Watch out for stipulations and exclusions, though. For example, Weisburger says if your company doesn't have flood insurance, business interruption caused by a flood may not be covered. Visit www.weisburger.com for more information on insurance coverages tailored specifically to green industry businesses. |
In one story of generosity, Standley says he stopped at a gas station prior to making a return trip to New Orleans in order to fill up his vehicle, and hopefully some gas cans, which were difficult to find. “You couldn’t find gas anywhere within a two-hour drive of new Orleans, so we knew we’d need to get some before we left in order to be self-sufficient,” he explains. “We stopped at every home improvement and hardware store, but we couldn’t find gas cans anywhere.” When he stopped at the gas station, Standley made his case to another gentleman there, offering to pay cash for the man’s own gas cans from his home. “He turned out to be a county commissioner in the area and not only was he able to get us four gas cans for our trip back, but he also paid for our fill-up,” Standley says.
A woman in the area also showed Standley and his family kindness, offering a sack of toys for the kids, as well as some clothing and a bible – with $100 sneakily tucked inside. “We were doing okay and didn’t need the money,” Standley says, “but the generosity of the people that we met was overwhelming. It’s nice to know that so many people still have that kind of spirit to help out strangers when they need it.”
Standley says the story that hit him the hardest was of a woman he met in a Home Depot parking lot. The woman, heavily medicated and weak, was accompanied by a friend who explained that the woman had lost not only her car and her home as a result of the hurricane, but her family as well. “Just seeing the look on her face I know that everything that’s happened to me up to this point is just a grain of sand on the beach compared to what this woman has gone through,” Standley says. “Now, when my five-year-old daughter asks if I’ll play with her, I put down whatever I’m doing to spend that time with her.”
BACK TO BUSINESS. According to Standley, news coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, though accurate in some respects, shouldn’t be generalized to represent all of New Orleans and surrounding towns and parishes. “You hear all these stories about the flooding and the looting, but our parish is just a dot on the map, compared to the New Orleans metro area,” he says. “The national news portrays all of southern Louisiana as New Orleans, but that’s not the case. It certainly wasn’t the best of circumstances, but we have power, people are driving through the streets and rebuilding their homes, kids are going back to school – a lot of things are coming back on line.”
Dan’s Landscaping & Lawn Care is coming back on line as well, tending to its commercial maintenance accounts during the clean up, and anticipating additional renovation and installation work once the clean up has been taken care of. “Having had a relationship with a tree care company in the area turned out to be incredibly important,” Standley says. “We’re starting clean-up jobs at some of our big shopping center properties that were hit hard – one of which had 60 trees downed all on its own. Without the business relationship we have with that tree care company, we woulnd’t have been able to get in there so fast and take care of our clients.”
Standley says while there will be three weeks of work for which the company will not bill these clients, he sees a good deal of restoration work coming around the corner. “There are parishes (counties) in the area that look like the surface of the moon right now,” Standley describes. “All of the green that used to be there will need to be replaced.” And while Dan’s Landscaping & Lawn Care did lose two apartment complex accounts as a results of major water damage on the properties, the company will likely pick up accounts from contractors whose businesses aren’t able to handle the aftermath. In the meantime, the challenge will be to find employees to handle the incoming workload.
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“Right now, everywhere you go you see ‘Help Wanted’ signs in he windows,” he says. “Each of the major home improvement stores around here need 100 people or more and in the meantime, they have to close early because they don’t have the staff to stay open. Initially, it’s going to be a big hit to the economy, but things will turn back around eventually.”
Standley says New Orleans and the surrounding area is on the right track to get turned around and rebuild the city with local input, noting that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has hired a international consulting firm that worked on rebuilding efforts in New York after Sept. 11 and in Southeast Asia after the tsunami that washed over that region in December 2004. “Already, the power is back on in French Quarter, the schools are reopening on Monday and things are happening commerce-wise,” Standley says.
For his own business, Standley says he learned some important lessons that other contractors should take note of, as well. “When we evacuated, I brought my computer hard drive and some of our business files with us, which would have been very important if the conditions had been worse,” he says. “I also learned the value of business continuation insurance and making sure you have access to emergency funds if you need them. It’s also important to have those local business relationships with equipment dealers, leasing companies, subcontractors, etc., so you’ll be at the top of the list as a customer and maybe get the resources you need ahead of the masses.”