Disaster Recovery Services

Rebuild, Restore and Renew: Scallon and Customers Triumph Over Hurricane Ike

After Hurricane Ike made landfall in Texas on September 13, 2008, Scallon Controls was contracted by several customers to assist in the recovery efforts. Within a week of the disaster, Scallon Controls and Emerson's Instrument & Valve Services technicians were mobilized onsite performing assessments and presenting a full service plan for revitalization, enabling customers to put their plants back into production.

Recovery work was done with 12 process plants and included the repair or replacement of more than 7,000 field devices and 62 DCS / PLC systems. Scallon Controls and local Emerson resources were augmented with an additional 246 people to aid in restoring plant operations as quickly as possible. Materials from key principals including; Fisher Controls, Fisher Regulators, DeltaV, Rosemount, MicroMotion, Bettis, Topworx, ASCO and many others were pre-ordered to ensure customers had the products to rebuild.

On-site crews were dispatched within a week of the storm to begin the rebuild process. Mobile work trailers, tents, generators, water tanks, air compressors, computer networks, portable warehousing, benches, tools and everything required to be self sufficient was brought in the plant environments.

One long term chemical plant customer found itself under five feet of salt water, lacking infrastructure and electricity, with valves, transmitters, flow meters needing attention and lost documentation. The daunting task list included project management, field assessment, specification, procurement, material management, removal and reinstallation, loop checks and startup. After the recovery efforts were complete, this customer stated, “Scallon Controls came to our site with a proactive plan to get our plant back up and running as soon as possible, every other vendor left us a message asking if we needed help.”

Emergency response teams were assembled in a matter of days, inventory was brought to sites and every piece of equipment was diagnosed, then repaired or replaced. The teams installed new technology and upgraded instrumentation to enhance performance when possible.

The disaster recovery response teams provided a turnkey solution and managed an overwhelming scope of work to become operational. A streamlined work process allowed technicians to validate and document repairs for each item by tag number and simplified solutions by providing a single source of contact. Emerson and Scallon Controls were able to provide all the necessary documentation to meet customer insurance requirements. As another customer wrote, "Scallon Controls completed in my opinion an almost insurmountable task.. and I for one, am very thankful for the job well done!”