When Hurricane Sandy pile-drove into the New York Metropolitan Area, it didn’t take much for anyone who was caught in it to realize that the night was going to be a long and potentially dangerous one. Unfortunately, those instincts were spot-on. Hurricane Sandy proved to be the worst natural disaster to befall the New York region in nearly a century (the Spanish Flu of 1918-19 being the worst “natural disaster”). Over one hundred people in the Tri-State Area alone lost their lives due to the storm. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses suffered damage from flooding and 80 mph winds; many neighborhoods also were decimated by fire. In total, the official tally of damage now amounts to an estimated $71 billion, of which $9 billion is earmarked to improve the storm protection infrastructure of the region in the event of a future disaster of this scale.Our own facility here in Connecticut lucked out: we suffered no remarkable damage to either our property or production capability. And as many tragedies happened that day, there were an equal number of stories of resistance and resilience in the face of Nature. In fact, many homes and businesses equipped with hurricane shutters and/or floodgate systems came through the disaster in good working order. While many companies should take credit for providing protection for businesses throughout the region, we at Vanguard contributed as well by providing the gaskets and seals we extrude here at our facility to several companies that expertly manufacture hurricane and flood protection equipment used throughout public and private infrastructure to help insure no rain or water creeps (or sweeps) into a building.
Hurricane Sandy was a wake-up call of sorts to New York and the surrounding environs. Hurricanes, as it turns out, are no longer simply the province of Florida, Louisiana, or the Carolinas; they can happen right here in Connecticut and they can be heartbreakingly devastating. Now that the superstorm’s fury has passed, it’s time to insure that our houses, offices, warehouses, factories, and storefronts are secure from any future danger. Meanwhile, here at Vanguard, we’ll keep working with the manufacturers that produce this high quality protection equipment and providing them with the highest quality sealing products in the industry.