When you’re on your third generation of family ownership over 41 years, you develop some instincts. That’s exactly how Metro Disaster CEO Britt Stewart was able to successfully position the Little Rock company in preparation for the onset of COVID-19.
“We’re generally proactive and we stocked up on the things we needed,” he said. “We kind of saw this coming, so we stocked in abundance so we wouldn’t run out of supply.”
“We did stock up before the surge and before the cases really started to rise; we took that gamble of let’s go ahead and get what we need as far as personal protective equipment, chemicals and supplies. We took that risk and expense knowing what was coming.”
While this is, obviously, the company’s first tangle with COVID-19, it’s not its first go-around with an environmental threat.
“We’ve always done environmental services like mold remediation; we’ve treated for staph infection. We’ve treated for MRSA before (COVID-19) came along,” Stewart said. “Essentially nothing is different (in protocol) than before when we were treating for primarily staph and those kinds of things in medical facilities. Except now, we’re treating commercial buildings for property managers, for banks, all different entities.”
The company’s phone started ringing the second week of March from clients wanting to arrange disinfection services and hasn’t slowed down since, Stewart said. Most jobs are completed overnight although with so many people working from home, there’s been the opportunity to complete jobs in the daytime as well.
Stewart said although the tactics for battling COVID-19 aren’t appreciably different than those of other conditions, there have been some operational changes that have had to be made to keep employees safe.
“(COVID-19) cuts down a little bit on efficiency,” he said. “We’re taking multiple vehicles as opposed to passenger vans that would take 8 to 10 people at a time. Now, we’re taking two or three vans as opposed to one, to keep people spread out.”
“Working in the buildings our people are wearing full PPE [personal protective equipment]. We actually go above and beyond the CDC guidelines for PPE. We have full suits, full respirators, not just little dust masks. That’s extra expense to do these jobs.”
The company’s full expertise was leveraged recently when an EF3 tornado ripped through Jonesboro on March 29. Metro Disaster, which covers the entire state, as well as Mississippi and Tennessee, was on the scene shortly after the storm hit. Again, the company’s systems and protocols allowed it to accommodate two disasters at one time.
“We brought in some additional help but not many. We have about 20 additional people right now to handle the wave of influx of projects,” he said. “That’s something we do typically anyway, whether a disaster comes through, a tornado or freeze event or whatever. We have a set of temporary employees that work for us pretty regularly and we can grow our field staff from 30 people to 100 people pretty quickly.”
Even so, COVID-19 found a way to complicate the company’s cleanup efforts, which lasted through Tuesday, March 31.
“COVID-19 presented an issue with (tornado cleanup) because when we take our people and we go out of town, we have to feed them,” he said. “Well, the restaurants you can’t dine in so you’re having to get takeout. It is another cog in the wheel of logistics. And the curfews; a lot of places weren’t open late at night when we were trying to work or work through the night. There were some logistical things surrounding the pandemic that added extra frustration.”
Stewart said the challenge moving forward is replenishing cleaning supplies and absorbing the additional expense of items once they do find them.
“Replenishing those supplies, especially personal protective equipment, is difficult and almost to the point of nonexistent because the government and medical facilities have the first rights to all that stuff now. It’s going to be difficult if this proceeds much longer.”
That aside, he’s proud to carry on in a manner that would’ve made his grandfather – a co-founder of the business – proud, from protecting the public to keeping employees at work and earning a paycheck.
“Everybody is sitting on hold seeing if the governor is going to do a shutdown like the other states. We consider ourselves an essential business because we are emergency responders and we are treating the buildings for the virus, so we’re trying to make preparations for that,” he said.
“We’re fortunate that our employees have this opportunity to work and not be laid off. It’s a tough time for a lot of people and we’re very blessed and fortunate that we have work to do. I think we’re doing an important job trying to apply disinfectants in treating these buildings.”
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