Commercial Damage in Kansas City Storm Event

11/1/2018 (Permalink)

Owner, Chris Lamey, ready to help wherever we are needed.

In July 2017, our franchise was asked to participate in the Kansas City storm event.  Kansas City flooded and because we participate on the SERVPRO Storm Team, we were asked to join efforts in Kansas so we did.

Once we committed to participate in this storm event, we started to get our crews ready to go. Vehicles were serviced, supplies were purchased, hotels rooms booked and debriefing conference calls with the Storm Team began, all the while calls from hundreds of homeowners and commercial property owners in the Kansas City area were "flooding" our call center. We joined forces with dozens of other franchises around the country to respond to the needs that Kansas City had. Once our Sales Rep, Theresa Smith, was in route, we were given dozens of homeowner and business owner's names and numbers to call. These were home and business owners who had called our 1-800-SERVPRO number asking for help. One by one, we called each person on the list, telling them we were on our way, setting appointments for Theresa to see each person individually and assess the damage. Our crew was in route at this point and was ready for work once Theresa signed up people in Kansas City. This process continued for a couple of weeks. We would call the customers setting up appointments, Theresa would provide on site estimates and the crew would do the work.

As you can imagine, being part of a Storm team is an emotional experience.  Home and business owners were tired and frustrated but always so glad to know that help was on the way. They expressed how thankful they were that we were "here to help".  

So after all the jobs were finished and we were about to send our crew home, we were notified that Kansas City had flooded again. The storm had been reactivated. We sent Theresa back up to Kansas City to start this process again.. So we found ourselves starting over this process with new homeowners. These poor people having to endure this again!!  We just tried to be a voice of comfort and hope as we made phone calls. Two more weeks...we were finished and sent our crew home! And lo and behold, a week later Kansas City flooded again! This time, our owner Chris Lamey, traveled up ahead of our crew, to meet the homeowners that we had been calling. We were becoming pros at this process and we found customers really relying on us for info about how the process would work once we arrived. It was a pleasure serving homeowners and commercial property owners in their time of need.

We spent another 2 weeks on this time in Kansas City. Just as we were finishing up, Harvey hit Houston. But that's another story....