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September 11, 2018

Promo Firms Brace For Hurricane Florence

Some East Coast promotional product companies in the storm’s projected path are shutting up shop and preparing.

By  Christopher Ruvo

With Hurricane Florence barreling toward the East Coast as a powerful Category 4 storm expected to hit land on Thursday, promotional products companies in projected impact areas were already closing down and/or preparing for the worst early this week.

Company Updates: Get a list of promo companies affected by Hurricane Florence

As of this writing, the states of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina were expected to bear the brunt of Florence’s wrath. Government officials were ordering evacuations on Monday as winds of 140 mph spun out in the Atlantic, making their way closer to the coast.

Located in Kitty Hawk, a town on North Carolina’s coastal Outer Banks, distributor Identify Yourself (asi/232242) was readying for Florence. “We are used to the storms and prepare accordingly by boarding up windows, filling sand bags and securing assets at our business and homes,” Alex LeFevre, company president, told Counselor. Starting Tuesday, Identify Yourself was giving employees off to evacuate and make preparations at their homes. “We’ll be here to help our employees with whatever they need and will be ready for whatever Florence throws our way,” Joseph Ausband, vice president of sales and marketing, said to Counselor.

To stay busy before the storm hits, Identify Yourself planned to create special storm T-shirts that will be for sale online. Proceeds will be donated to help those affected by Florence. “Last year, after Hurricane Matthew, we donated over $1,500 to Cape Hatteras United Methodist Men, a great group that helps those in need after these storms,” said Ausband.

Meanwhile, distributor A Creative Touch Inc. in Wilmington, NC, a port city, is planning to close its office Wednesday and remain closed until after the storm. “We had one team member evacuate today (Monday), while two plan to ride out the storm and one is undecided,” Bethany Seagle, of Creative Touch, told Counselor. “We’re hoping to be back in the office on Monday – good Lord willing.”

Being on the Carolina coast, Seagle has a procedure in place for when big storms roll in. But this time around, Florence’s size, power and anticipated reach are complicating things. “Usually I would set up at a remote location about five hours inland about two days before a storm is scheduled to make landfall,” she told Counselor. “However, that far inland doesn’t appear to be far enough away this time around. Therefore, I’ll be headed out to Denver on Wednesday to set up a remote office. My husband was already scheduled to be in Denver for a seminar.”

At Access Design & Print (asi/102856), a promo business based in the Outer Banks town of Kill Devil Hills, owner Adam Baldwin said operations – and local business in general – were effectively beginning to shut down on Monday. With an evacuation order in place, tourists were starting to leave and locals were preparing for the storm – work that includes helping ready the properties of friends and families who have coastal homes but are not present. “There’s a mad dash to get the deck furniture in, take the hammocks down and board up windows in certain cases,” Baldwin told Counselor.

At Access Design & Print, prep includes lifting equipment off the ground to protect it from floodwater damage. Baldwin was also still considering the best place to potentially evacuate to, as the storm’s exact path remained uncertain early Tuesday. “It often has to be a last-minute decision based on how the storm is going to track,” Baldwin said. While sales will take a hit during the storm-forced days of closure, Baldwin said business can potentially rebound as clients might need to replace things like business signs – a service Access provides. “It’s a very unfortunate situation,” he said.

Elsewhere, distributor Brand Fuel (asi/145025) was getting ready for Florence, too. Headquartered in Morrisville, NC, with offices in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, Brand Fuel instructed employees on Monday to add a message to email signatures saying the firm was expecting to stay operational, but that there might be communication and carrier delays because of the storm.

Employees in the Norfolk, VA office were under mandatory evacuation from government officials, while employees at the North Carolina offices were being instructed by company leaders to be ready to move computer towers to desktops as a precaution against flooding. Employees were also being asked to at least consider shifting orders to suppliers outside the hurricane’s expected impact zone, among other measures. “After the storm, assuming I have a device with communication capabilities, I’ll attempt to check in with each affected employee to see who is operational and, of course, check in on everyone’s well-being,” said Brand Fuel General Manager Allison McLain in a communication to employees.

Company Co-President Danny Rosin noted that Brand Fuel’s work is performed and saved in the cloud, meaning essential data will not be lost to the storm. Rosin was trying to keep a sense of humor about Florence. “We have lots of branded towel samples in our showroom to help with clean up,” he told Counselor.