Reflections of Hurricane Helene,
one year later…
Most Fridays at Sox and Freeman begin bright and early with a safety meeting complemented by snacks, coffee, and lots of good natured banter. Not so on Sept. 27th, 2024. The remnants of Hurricane Helene were making its way through the Midlands. We arrived at the office that morning to the sound of ringing phones and blinking voicemail lights. All of us went to work responding to the multitude of tree emergencies. Every tree company around was doing the exact same thing. Our crews worked non-stop on Helene damage until Thanksgiving.
I, Blake Roddy, started my career at Sox and Freeman in 1997. I had seen the impacts of some bad storms, tornados, ice damage and had heard all the stories of Hurricane Hugo in 1989. However, nothing prepared me for this. Helene’s impact was not just from winds breaking limbs or knocking down trees. Torrential rains had essentially liquified the soils in residential neighborhoods. Trees weren’t just breaking, they were completely uprooting and taking the rootball and much of the surrounding soil with them. This was happening everywhere. By that following Monday, Sept. 30th, we had over 300 tree emergencies that we were trying to triage as best as we could.
GIF Credit weather.gov
The normal job of our Estimating Arborists is to visit the job site, review the work with the client, and create a plan of action. From there, we can provide our clients with the plan and the associated estimates for the work. However, when there is a storm event, circumstances change. Trees are often on houses, hung up in other trees, or compromised in other different and dangerous ways. Creating a plan of action is no longer as straight forward as it normally is. Things are now unpredictable, unstable, and often very dangerous.
This is where things change and your reliance and relationships with the men and women you work with make all the difference. I can be looking at a tree on a house that is precariously perched and ready to give way at any minute causing more damage and mayhem. In those circumstances, it is less being able to create a plan and an estimate and more of intuitively knowing that even though I don’t know how the crew will do it, I know and trust that they can do it, and do it safely.
I can say without a doubt that every one of the men and women I was blessed to work with during Helene and am blessed to work with now are some of the finest people I have ever met. Sox and Freeman is not just a place to work at or have a career at, it is a way of life. It is all because of the people who walk into our office every day or climb up into our trucks and head out to care for our clients. I am honored to be part of it! While I sure hope it is a long time before we have another storm like Helene, I know that when it comes we will be ready to serve and care for our customers.
