Numbers are quite often the gauge of how hard or easy a restoration project is: the magnitude of a storm, the acres of a wildfire, the speed of the wind. As I reflect on some of the more challenging jobs I have encountered this past year, all those stats we typically see — budgets, scopes, figures, totals, yields and percentages — aren’t the real indicators of what makes a job hard. Ultimately, the hard jobs are the ones you are not prepared for.
This past February when the polar freeze hit Texas, First Onsite opened 1,100 new projects in response to the storm. It was a record number of projects for the company. While there are inherent difficulties in the sheer volume of projects from this CAT event, I knew we had the support from our regions across the country, a dedicated national team, and the proper materials and equipment to manage the response. On a deeper, less tangible level, though, the successful response came down to three core things: planning, preparation, and partnership.