Portable restroom operators scrambling to serve their communities in the aftermath of a series of devastating tornadoes in Alabama all have the same reaction to the April 27 twisters: The scope of the damage defies description, and you wouldn’t understand unless you saw it with your own eyes.
“There’s really no way to describe it without seeing it. Even pictures don’t do it justice,’’ says Tony Thompson, owner of East Alabama Portable Toilets, in Anniston, Ala. “You can take communities out here and it looks like you just set off a bomb. There are some places where the houses are totally destroyed and you can’t even tell there was a house there.’’
Thompson’s company was close to the path of the tornado that killed more than 40 people in Tuscaloosa, Ala., then stayed on the ground heading northeast to the Georgia state line. On that one day, an estimated 75 to 100 twisters hit Mississippi and Alabama, killing almost 250 people.
PROs in the state reported restroom units blown away in the storms, but despite some messy yards and extended power outages, the sanitation contractors hit the ground running after the storms passed, looking to get restrooms to people who no longer had a place to call home. Though the tornadoes passed through mostly rural areas, they also wiped out a lot of newer subdivisions and tore through the center of cities, flattening houses and businesses.
Bert Dain of Aerial Sewer Service, Athens, Ala., watched the storm clouds move a few miles from his home and business, then quickly loaded a trailer of fresh restrooms and headed out to a nearby trailer park that was hit hard.
“I can’t believe how many people were helping out. The only thing I could do is give them a place to go to the bathroom. I put all the toilets out and said, ‘You guys need them more than I do,’ ” Dain said. He serves the trailer park for some onsite system maintenance work, and had repairs to make following the tornadoes. But he just felt it was important to donate units for residents and emergency workers.
“It makes you sick to your stomach. It’s so much torn apart,’’ Dain said. “Everybody’s lives are in garbage cans. Everything they had is being loaded into garbage cans.’’
UP TO THE TASK
Though the tornados wiped out so much infrastructure, PROs in the area say local restroom inventory would be sufficient to handle further emergency response and all the construction work expected to follow as residents and businesses rebuild in the coming months and years. There were reports of the Federal Emergency Management Agency turning to sources outside the state for restrooms early on, but contractors said that was unnecessary.
When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, thousands of restrooms were deployed from across the country and manufacturers expanded production to meet a staggering need. Many contractors added to their inventories at that time, and a healthy construction industry before the 2008 market collapse also bolstered unit numbers. But over the past few years, many of those restrooms were stored.
Dain said there are four restroom companies in his territory, and that two of them probably had 300 to 400 idle units before the storms hit. He only lost two units in the storm – placed at an auto auction facility – and had no plans to add to his inventory of 150 units in anticipation of expected construction site orders.
Advantage Waste LLC of Birmingham, Ala., quickly deployed about 150 units for local emergency response, servicing them seven days a week for the first few weeks following the tornadoes. But unlike Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, government demand for restroom service was already slowing down in mid-May.
“There were actually enough units in the state of Alabama to take care of all of this,’’ said Debora Campbell, who owns Advantage with her husband, Mark. “If this had been five years ago, there might not have been enough sitting around.’’
Campbell felt fortunate that the biggest tornado spared the Advantage Waste office and yard, passing about a half mile away. They were also safe from damage at their home 35 miles from Birmingham.
“They say, ‘Get in a safe place when the weather hits.’ Well, there wasn’t a safe place to be’’ if you were in the path of the tornado, she said. But Campbell sounds a positive note, both about the great support she’s seen from people flooding into Alabama to lend a hand and the way Alabamans are facing this tragedy head-on.
“We’re just ready to work and do whatever the contractors want us to do. That’s how people in Alabama work. We just keep moving forward,’’ she said. “We are banding together and everyone is helping out. Our churches and everyone has reached out so much to people who are hurting.’’
BE PREPARED
Kelly Allen, owner of All American Rental & Contractor in Cullman, Ala., has a unique perspective on the disaster. In addition to running his restroom service, Allen is deputy director of the Cullman County Emergency Government Agency. His office is coordinating emergency relief efforts, where he put in 200-plus hours of overtime in less than two weeks after the biggest tornado took out much of downtown Cullman and surrounding communities.
Ethically, Allen didn’t think he could offer his own restroom services when the National Guard called his emergency government office. So he directed requests to other providers, and he assumes he’ll be busy putting out units for the rebuild. His business sustained about $11,000 in damage to restrooms and hand-wash stations stored in the company yard. In addition to coordinating basic relief efforts, Allen worked on a new county mobile funeral preparation vehicle used to retrieve and prepare 18 bodies for burial after the storms.
While he was monitoring events in the basement emergency government office at the county courthouse, there was a terrible moment when transformers nearby were exploding, and then the power went down as the tornado passed overhead.
“The 30 seconds without power felt like an eternity,’’ he said. Then generators kicked in. “The first thing that came to my mind is, ‘Am I dreaming?’ Will this nightmare ever end? I have to focus on 80,000 citizens, and am I going to have to be facing going home and digging my family out of the rubble?’’
Cullman lost 400 homes and 90 businesses. With little time to take shelter, Allen said he has been using media interviews to promote storm preparedness. Among the tips he’d share with portable restroom contractors is to have weather radios in the office and at home, and to have a safe place to go, stocked with food and water and a battery-powered portable radio to monitor the news.
A THANKFUL PRO
In Anniston, Thompson reported he lost about 100 restrooms in one yard. He also lost a camper and all the trees on lake property he owns that was in the direct path of a twister. His home and office were spared.
“Fortunately, we didn’t lose anything more than material things. Nobody I know personally was hurt and the tornado missed us by a mile,’’ he said. “When something like this happens, it’s pretty humbling, especially when you get out and see the damage.’’
