Restoration Services Key to Business Continuation Following Disaster

It has been nearly 21 years since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, causing chaos on an unprecedented scale. The storm inflicted massive direct property damage, infrastructure losses and indirect costs such as business interruption and displacement over Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Georgia. In New Orleans alone, 80 percent of the city was submerged.

All told, the storm would wreak $125 billion of havoc — in 2005 dollars — in direct and indirect losses and was the costliest tropical cyclone on record at the time. It remains the most expensive storm in the Atlantic basin when adjusted for inflation, tied by 2017’s Hurricane Harvey.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Little Rock at this moment, an aging water pipe past its functional service life springs a leak over a warehouse floor. In Rogers, a family-owned cold storage facility groans in the Arkansas heat, its massive chillers straining to keep up as every household in northwest Arkansas turns up the AC.

The preceding examples — one that did happen, two that could happen at any moment on any given day — show how an incident does not have to be historic in its size and scope to have a detrimental and even existential impact on the life of a business and the people behind it. When such disaster strikes, immediate response is crucial for getting a company back on its feet quickly.

Payton Smith, chief operating officer at Metro Disaster Specialists in North Little Rock, understands that fact intimately. His family-owned and -managed company has been in the business of helping companies recover from disasters of all types since 1979 and, over that time, has grown into a statewide provider of restoration services to any and all sized companies.

Payton Smith
(Photo provided by Metro Disaster Specialists)

“I would say what sets us apart is the expertise to turn these projects quickly and efficiently,” he said to explain the firm’s longevity. “The thing we’re known for is minimizing business interruption and downtime with our professional approach. We do in-house training, and we also send our people around the country to be trained.”

Smith said the company’s expertise, from the vagaries of insurance claims to certifications for certain hazardous conditions to well-polished protocols for mobilizing quickly, are also part of the company’s stellar reputation.

“We did the [Mall at Turtle Creek] in Jonesboro after the tornado, for example,” he said. “We had a job trailer there with onboard generators, internet, phone, everything we needed. We had an estimator there, dealing with the client’s needs while also dealing with the insurance company, making sure all the coverages are met. Then we had a construction superintendent doing the construction and a restoration production manager that’s running all the restoration.”

Smith knows the standard that has kept the business at the forefront of disaster restoration because he has lived it himself during his career. That gives him a better understanding of projects and a clearer picture of restoration challenges than other executives who have never had to do the dirty work themselves.

“My cousin and I are certified restorers. That’s the highest designation you can carry in our industry,” he said. “It was a five-year, rigorous program that we did; we traveled around the country to get our prerequisites, and then we sat for a course for a week and then a four-hour exam. In my opinion, that’s what is different about us is having the knowledge, the expertise and the manpower to turn these jobs.”

The company’s long tenure has allowed it to create an extensive network of subcontractors, which enable it to respond after large-scale weather events such as a tornado outbreak that damages multiple areas of the state or flooding extensive enough to affect several towns along a given waterway. That network allows the company to more than double its usual employee headcount of about 45 workers in response to the scope of an emergency event.

“Our subcontractors work with us pretty much exclusively because we pay them every Friday; it’s not net 30 [days], net 60, net 120. It’s net Friday as far as payment goes,” he said. “What that means is in doing that, we have a team statewide where they’ll drop everything for us when we need them.

“Between those subcontractors around the state that are working for us and some temporary workers that we have trained and who work for us when we get very busy, we can scale up very quickly for major events, 100-plus employees if we need them.”

Smith said when a business owner is considering restoration firms to call in times of need, several factors should be weighed. One important factor is the breadth of services a company offers, including the various certifications needed to work in certain environments, such as hospitals or dealing with certain environmental issues or biohazards.

Metro’s model leaves no stone unturned when it comes to addressing the needs of clients, from moving and storing building contents to cleanup and remediation to reconstructing damaged structures.

“We’re a pretty unique company in that we can go A to Z,” he said. “People ask us, ‘Well, what exactly do you do?’ and we tell them. ‘We’re a restoration company, we’re an environmental company, we’re a moving company, we’re a cleaning company, and we’re a construction company.’”

The firm even helps companies prepare for future events through its Prepared Response in Managed Emergencies program. Through that, Metro inspects a business’s facilities, equipment and processes, makes recommendations for preventing potential problems and health hazards, and gathers all critical data, important documents and information to help streamline services in an emergency.

“A lot of times, property managers, building owners, schools, colleges or hospitals want use their own vendors,” Smith said. “We collect information on all of their vendors — their elevator company, their electrician, their plumber, their sprinkler company, their alarm company. Then Metro will respond on-site with a company’s specialized suppliers and trusted business partners. Whoever they do business with, we get that down on a sheet they can hand to us on-site so we know exactly who to use.”

Smith’s advice to any business owner when choosing a restoration company is simple: Do your homework, looking at such things as the certifications a vendor holds and third-party endorsements such as a solid Better Business Bureau rating. Time in business also says a lot.

“We’re not a franchise. We didn’t just pass a credit check and then, all of a sudden, we’re open for business,” he said. “We’ve been in business almost 50 years right out of North Little Rock, Arkansas, and we received an award a couple years ago, as being among the top 50 companies in our industry in the nation. We’re very proud of that.”