September, 30 2003
Central Nova Scotia
K.B. Clarke Receives 800 assignments in 30 days from Hurricane Juan
The first hurricane to hit N.S. in years caused devastating damage to homes, forests, automobiles and anything else unlucky enough to have been in its path. Fortunately for us our location in Kentville received no damage and our other facility in Dartmouth while without power or phones was only minimally impacted. K.B. Clarke immediately went in to service mode by having our Kentville location receive all calls and dispatch them via cell phones and mobile communications to Halifax/Dartmouth. Within 3 days our phone systems were up and running in Dartmouth and with the assistance of a large generator we were able to have power to most of our building.
All the while this was going on we were receiving hundreds of calls daily for new assignments. The system we used was to prioritize all claims by severe, moderate and cosmetic, assigning a Project Manager and Teams by area, with the severe claims i.e. missing roofs, windows, trees to be given the priority. As each day passed we could tell there was no way we could service this many claims with our current staff so we contacted our Disaster Kleenup Head Office and made arrangements for hundreds of our members from other areas of the country to work out of Halifax. Many of the members worked for K.B. Clarke Teams while others worked directly for insurers. In total we figure Disaster Kleenup Canada Members including ourselves serviced close to 2000 claims.
While this added dramatically to the claim cost we figured the savings in secondary damages was worth while plus we had dozens more service vehicles, generators, tools, drying equipment, estimators and manpower. While in every instance we know we weren’t able to give the service and customer care we would like, we felt that the savings in having quick emergency response and minimizing secondary damage was worth the extra Mobilization Costs. Even in 2004 we still had hundreds of cosmetic repairs awaiting the nicer spring weather.
Central Nova Scotia
K.B. Clarke Receives 800 assignments in 30 days from Hurricane Juan
The first hurricane to hit N.S. in years caused devastating damage to homes, forests, automobiles and anything else unlucky enough to have been in its path. Fortunately for us our location in Kentville received no damage and our other facility in Dartmouth while without power or phones was only minimally impacted. K.B. Clarke immediately went in to service mode by having our Kentville location receive all calls and dispatch them via cell phones and mobile communications to Halifax/Dartmouth. Within 3 days our phone systems were up and running in Dartmouth and with the assistance of a large generator we were able to have power to most of our building.
All the while this was going on we were receiving hundreds of calls daily for new assignments. The system we used was to prioritize all claims by severe, moderate and cosmetic, assigning a Project Manager and Teams by area, with the severe claims i.e. missing roofs, windows, trees to be given the priority. As each day passed we could tell there was no way we could service this many claims with our current staff so we contacted our Disaster Kleenup Head Office and made arrangements for hundreds of our members from other areas of the country to work out of Halifax. Many of the members worked for K.B. Clarke Teams while others worked directly for insurers. In total we figure Disaster Kleenup Canada Members including ourselves serviced close to 2000 claims.
While this added dramatically to the claim cost we figured the savings in secondary damages was worth while plus we had dozens more service vehicles, generators, tools, drying equipment, estimators and manpower. While in every instance we know we weren’t able to give the service and customer care we would like, we felt that the savings in having quick emergency response and minimizing secondary damage was worth the extra Mobilization Costs. Even in 2004 we still had hundreds of cosmetic repairs awaiting the nicer spring weather.
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