Michigan Workers To Assist In Repair Efforts From Hurricane Harvey
HOUSTON (WWJ) -- As Hurricane Harvey pounds Texas, reconstruction teams are already headed south.
One of the companies that has helped in recovery and repair efforts in the past is Belfor Property Restoration and they are again sending workers down to help in the cleanup. That includes workers from here in Michigan.
CEO Sheldon Yellen spoke with WWJ during a live broadcast on Friday, and said crews are already out in Texas to board up buildings.
"We started early this morning boarding up a few buildings of people that are red alert clients of ours that have called for us to do those pre-board ups," Yellen said. "Right now we have teams in the Waco, Texas area inland that are waiting for the storm to pass."
Belfor Property Restoration has seven offices in Texas including locations in Corpus Christi and Houston. Hurricane Harvey has already begun to hit the coast with the wind speeds expected to rise even more by late Friday night. It is considered a Category 4 storm.
Yellen said there is already 164 workers in Texas preparing for the storm and another 42 tractor trailers are on their way with 344 more workers. Some of the workers heading south hail from the Michigan office.
"One of the things we'll do early on is secure the properties and try to prevent mold and mildew from growing after we extract water from all of the facilities," Yellen said.
He added that the group from Michigan will be arriving to the Waco area tomorrow morning. A second wave of workers -- which also includes people from Michigan -- will leave on Sunday and will be on assignment for 120 days.
Yellen was asked about the safety aspect of this restoration project, and said the company puts a high priority on making sure their employees are safe.
"Safety is our first priority, we will never put our people in harms way," Yellen said. "We wait until the storm passes and once that storm passes our people will converge to the areas that were effected. Our people are trained, we have many classes going on throughout the year. Our folks are well aware of the hazards involved before they get there.
"We are looking for downed fire lines, we are looking for flooded areas and we have a buddy system. When people are sent out in the morning to work there is a buddy system."
Yellen added that he expects Belfor to have crews working on the cleanup for 10-12 months if the storm is powerful as they are predicting.