Going Above and Beyond for Our Customer and Community
Storm preparedness requires continuous planning, training, coordination and refinement, but the overwhelming impact of Hurricane Helene and the extraordinary ways our teams stepped up offer a lesson in how having the right people on your side can make all the difference.
As we shared in an earlier blog, UG2 benefits from seasoned professionals who inform our approach to emergency preparedness. They work closely with our teams, beginning with core best practices and building on those to create highly individualized plans tailored to each facility. Those detailed plans incorporate lengthy checklists, assign roles linked to key constituents, and include clear communication protocols that enable real-time monitoring of progress and emerging issues. And as always, our collective planning and decision-making prioritize safety above all things.
Helene’s Recovery Efforts
As Helene wrought destruction, headlines, articles and images captured the storm and its aftermath for the public. Still, the reality communicated by our teams on the ground in North Carolina shocked even the most experienced among us. The human toll of these storms was traumatic to witness, even from afar. But our teams moved through indescribably difficult events with extraordinary professionalism, demonstrating, time and again, their care, compassion and seemingly endless capacity for creative problem-solving. UG2 team members not only went above and beyond the call of duty to support our customers but also protected one another and stepped up for the community as a whole.
Just a few examples of hundreds of remarkable actions taken by UG2 employees:
- UG2 employees and their family members volunteered with a local church, Montmorenci UMC, before the storm arrived, picking up Manna FoodBank supplies, transporting them to the church, and unloading them in preparation for a community market. Such efforts are essential in a community where over 50% of the people have food needs.
- Our team also set up center barriers at mall entrances, assisted IT in running wires from the roof through the office to get the office back online and worked with our customer’s roofing vendor to check on roof leaks and HVAC units of tenant spaces.
- Employees who were unable to return home safely due to flooding spent their time helping to clean and sanitize the mall, removing down trees and shrubbery, and clearing parking lot drains to keep the lots from flooding.
- Team members drove to a community 2.5 hours away to pick up essential supplies and transport critical items to an operational post office.
- Our employees who had their power and water restored volunteered to do laundry for others and even opened their homes to provide access to showers.
“I know that people have seen the devastation online,” one employee wrote, “But it doesn’t compare to what we have seen on the ground. Businesses, bridges, roads, homes… all have been swept away. It’s been difficult all around, but everyone has remained very hopeful, grateful, and thankful that we are together. It is a family. We needed one another and were able to provide that support and love.”
We are beyond grateful to our employees and awed by their compassion and their action in the face of life-threatening circumstances. There’s no one else we would rather have on our teams and by our side.