Houston Branch Help Cleanup Texas Following Hurricane Laura

It was a sight that made Gulf Coast residents shudder. Two storms were taking aim at the Gulf Coast and they were anticipated to overlap in Louisiana – at the same time.

The Weather Channel characterized it as, “some kind of cosmic joke of a Venn diagram” that showed Tropical Storm Laura and Tropical Storm Marco overlapping over Chauvin, La., as hurricanes. Due to the unpredictability of the storms, all of the Gulf Coast was on alert, including BrightView’s Houston branch.

“A week before landfall, we began monitoring the approach of both Tropical Storms Marco and Laura and we conducted a series of preparation calls and began to notify out clients for debris clean-up preapproval,” said Jamey Goss, Houston Branch Manager. “We worked closely with our Shane Rasco, Regional Account Manager for H-E-B, Bryan Farris, Regional EHS Manager, and Chris Miska, Vice President/General Manager, to stage emergency response teams in the event that Laura impacted our clients located in the eastern and southern parts of Texas.”

Luckily, Marco never amounted to more than a tropical storm and made landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River Aug. 24 and brought sustained winds of just 40 mph and heavy rainfall. Laura, however, took an opposite direction.

More than 750,000 residents in Texas and in Louisiana were ordered to evacuate ahead of the storm, which had strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane before it made landfall at Cameron, La., on Aug. 27 with 150 mph winds and more than 9 feet of storm surge. Though it moved through quickly, it still left a wide swath of destruction.

“In the early morning hours of Aug. 27, we went out to review our clients to the east and south,” Goss said. “In the first few hours, we discovered several H-E-B sites we service in Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange were hit very hard by the high winds.”

The Houston branch dispatch four teams of two with trucks, trailers, chainsaws, chippers, bottled water, and nonperishable food items to help assist with the clean-up efforts.

Under the direction of H-E-B’s Emergency Operating Center, BrightView assisted in cleaning up eight of their grocery stores.

“The efforts by all of our on-the-ground field personnel and scouts were extremely successful and we were able to cleanup all of the affected stores with no safety issues,” Goss said. “All of our team members returned home safely and we were able to showcase our ability to be a valued partner with H-E-B, our largest customer in the state of Texas.”