I have not read all of the posts, but I wanted to get my two cents in before I head off for a nap. It's almost 2 am Central, and Daddy's gotta dismantle a twice-struck by lightning dead, hollow, and infested 60+ ft 48" DBH red oak tomorow morning... oh, and the drop area is about 20'x20' and of course it's over a house, a fence, and drop wires...
The way I got into the Storm Work Biz was through the DCN.
The first step would be to get a DUNS number, which is to register with Dun and Bradstreet, which is a do-nothing semi-govt entity that basically allows you to do work for the govt.
Once you have a DUNS number, google the "Disaster Contractor's Network" and get involved. There will be a place on their site for people to post "needs" and people, such as ourselves, to post "services."
I got into the DCN a few months before Katrina. I got a phone call on a friday from the city of Boca Raton, FL, wanting to know if I could be in town monday morning, geared up, staffed up, and ready to go. My FIL owns a B-I-G trucking and excavation company in NY, and we left out saturday morning with 38 peterbilt tractors with dump trailers, 2 excavators with thumbs, 2 wheel loaders with grapples, 2 humongous bobcats with grapples, my chipper (rented 2 more vermeers from somewhere in NC too...), my GMC Brigadier ten-wheeler, all the saws, ropes, and gear you can shake a stick at, and a small army of drivers, climbers, groundies, operators, and laborers.
We were given our first sector, 10 blocks by 10 blocks, or 100 square city blocks, monday morning. We were finished, and inspected "satisfactory" wednesday morning. Some companies had been in one secotr for 5 weeks or more and were still not complete. Following that, the city laid off essentially all other contractors in Boca Raton, and we took over. We worked directly for the city, while picking up tons of side work from homeowners, developers, etc.
After our work in Boca, which really was not all that bad, we headed to Deerfield Beach, then Pompano Beach, then down to Miami (Awesome) then to Key Isla Morada for a while, then over to Gulfport MS, and into LA and AL... We got all of this work from the DCN and excellent references from the original project in Boca.
I realize that most of us don't have the luxury of a loaded FIL with tons of equipment, and I was fortunate to be able to stumble upon the Katrina work. However, the DCN is activated any time a storm hits any part of the country, and the "needs" posted run the gammit of everything from "I am betsy sue smith, and I have a tree in my front yard that fell over in the storm..." to "We are the city of New Orleans, and we need qualified, professional tree crews to perform services on a contract basis..."
I have not been involved with the DCN since Katrina, as I got into the Power Infrastructure Biz a few years ago, and am now only a lowly part-timer in regards to trees. I am not sure if they still operate the same way, but it is worth checking out for sure.
I will say that overall, the FEMA work through the DCN was an uphill battle in regards to getting paid, and corruption was rampant, so keep your guard up if you get involved with any of those scumbags.
Now that I realize I have written a novel, instead of a paragraph, I will go to bed. I hope this diahrea of the mouth has been useful in some way.
T
