CLEVELAND – Extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes and ice storms present PMPs with a whole host of challenges. While many PCOs have done a great job instituting disaster preparedness plans, extreme weather events are largely out of one’s hands.
Those who responded to PCT’s recent reader poll said that in the last five years they have had to deal with hurricanes (40 percent), ice storms (28 percent), droughts (27 percent) and tornadoes (5 percent).
Brent Boles, owner of Green Pest Solutions, Topeka, Kan., said he counts himself as lucky for not having to deal with major, catastrophic weather events in recent years. However, he said he has experienced a few ice storms in the last few years, and a part of the company's service area had a mild drought, which he said, “seems to have had a negative impact on sales (customers calling because of ant and other issues).”
In Boles’ experience ice storms are problematic because they “present both a production issue and a safety/liability challenge.”
One area of the U.S. that has experienced wild weather during the last five years is Texas, and two poll respondents commented that in Texas “all of the above” would have been their answer.
Shane Mantz, branch manager for Magna Pest Solutions, Austin, Texas said during the last five years his service area has been significantly impacted by all of the weather-related events in the PCT poll.
“From customers’ homes being damaged in tornadoes, to re-writing treatment protocols due to drought and water restrictions, to the ‘snowmageddon’ that covered most of Texas a few years ago and left us without power for over a week and some of our customers with tens of thousands of dollars in damages…the list goes on,” he said.
Mantz said that drought has made the most prolonged impact, while the ice storm was the most severe weather event .