Vultures and thieves at your back

[Kansas]

From Sarah Mclachlan's song, Angel.

Woke up this morning and saw online that my second biggest customer who builds pallets plus a lot of recycled pallets had his entire operation burn to the ground last night. I called this morning and talked to Mary. She was in tears. She said they talked of just giving up and shutting down. I offered anything we could do to  help. Later Mike called. He doesn't plan on quitting. He mentioned a couple of trucks from rival pallet companies had driven by. He lives in the middle of nowhere. I suspect that might have tipped the scales. He said last night he was ready to throw in the towel. He woke up this morning with plenty of fight in him especially after seeing those pickups. While talking to him, the press showed up. He told Mary to go talk to them, he didn't want to. After a few minutes, he said, I better go talk to them, and tell them we are still  going. He lost his notcher, tear down machine, 15 nail guns, material, over 100,000 dollars in stuff. He burned his hands getting the skid steer out but its okay. His friend and neighbor came over and handed him a check for 100,000 dollars to help him out. He didn't take it.

In every business, you have the good guys, and the bad ones. More so in the pallet business than any other business I have ever seen. It was the bad guys driving by. They truly are vultures and thieves. There will be other good guys in the business step forward on Monday to help, I have no doubt. Gonna get him through this.

[Okrafarmer]

Wow. That's rough.

[Magicman]

Hopefully enough of his friends and good guys will give him enough support that he can rebuild and regain his business. 

I also hope that the source of the fire is deemed as accidental or not man caused.

[Kansas]

It was determined to be an electrical fire.

[Autocar]

Fire and sawmills get scary in a hurry, I deliver at a mill that looks like a catastrophe waiting to happen , wood slash and trash everywhere. Iam glad he has the get up and go to jump right back in. And I wish him all the luck in the world.

[NWP]

Did he have good insurance?

[Chuck White]

Hope things work out for your customer, Kansas!

Always sad to hear of a fire like that one.

[thecfarm]

That is too bad and sad. How many are out of a job for a while?

[Kansas]

Not long for the employees.. He ran around trying to get nail guns today...His son, who is a good mechanic, thinks some of the equipment can be salvaged with new motors. We are cutting down some 45" inch deck boards first thing in the morning to 40" so he can do repair work on pallets while his teardown machine is down. Fortunately, he was pretty well caught up. He told me he would be on the phone in the morning calling all his customers, cause we know who is going to be calling them trying to pick up business. And its also good that we are heading into the holidays. Things tend to slow down before the first of the year. He has a barn he can move into for now.

He had no insurance. One of those things. He bought the place, didn't have much for equipment, the buildings weren't great. He thought they wanted too much money for insurance. Over time, he upgraded the equipment and the buildings, and forgot about the insurance part. Got me to wondering what I even have insurance on. It will be on my to do list tomorrow.

[NWP]

Insurance is one of those double edged swords.  Can't afford it but you can't afford not to have it either. :-\

[thecfarm]

Good to hear he trying to get up and running. I hope his customers will come back to him and stay with him. Almost sounds like the competition will try to get his customers. I just hope they don't give them some really low price just because they want to drive him out.

[Al_Smith]

It was determined to be an electrical fire.

I'm not going to preach nor stand on the bully pulpit as an expert but often times people don't take into consideration the possibilty of fires caused by explosive or combustable wood dust and fibers produced by wood working operations .

There is an entire section of the national electrical code that addresses this subject .Of course all this knowledge doesn't help after the fact .Consider though it doesn't take much of an ignition source under the right conditions to be catastrophic .Something to think about with this rebuilding in mind .

[Kansas]

Good to hear he trying to get up and running. I hope his customers will come back to him and stay with him. Almost sounds like the competition will try to get his customers. I just hope they don't give them some really low price just because they want to drive him out.

They try all the time. Lowball a price, then deliver junk, when they get around to it, or raise their price after a few months. The pallet industry is so cutthroat. We set our own prices on pallet lumber. Its higher than you can get it out of Missouri, other places. Same on our skids and pallets. Its the service and quality. I know a few of the bad ones caught stealing pallets in the middle of the night. Nothing happens to them. I know of a few that sold CHEP pallets to companies. CHEP pallets are strictly leased. I have no love for them, but I told the right people to put a stop to it.

I don't think he will lose any customers at all. Gonna be a rough ride to keep everyone taken care of for awhile, especially after he just took on a big account. He will get through it.

[Kansas]

Here is the story and video on it.

http://www.wibw.com/home/localnews/headlines/Building-Total-Loss-In-Fire-183699071.html

[thecfarm]

There is a pallet mill in town,Livermore Falls,use to be Iacsson's for years. Than they sold out to PalletOne,but the original owners still are making money from it. A small one in Kents Hill and a good size one in Leeds. These are all within ½ hour of me. The first 2 have been in business for years,at least 40. I've been into Pallet One many times. Quite the place.

[Al_Smith]

I can remember a couple of lumber yard fires and there isn't any putting them out once they get started .

[4speed]

In every business, you have the good guys, and the bad ones. More so in the pallet business than any other business I have ever seen. It was the bad guys driving by. They truly are vultures and thieves. There will be other good guys in the business step forward on Monday to help, I have no doubt. Gonna get him through this.

I have seen some cut-throat actions in the bail bond business. And I was thinking of buying a mill and walking away from this headache and eventual heart attack to start a milling business...

There are some good folks out there, however. You are a great friend for helping him.