FEMA Chassis Trailers

The governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands sent a $7,500,000,000 billion funding request to the United States Congress which would aid the island in rebuild their energy grid, schools, hospitals, government buildings and ports while helping to offset the loss of tourist revenue that the island was expected to make. The money is more important than fixing current problems, it’s operating capital that could lessen the blow of more-severe job losses because the government is the USVI’s largest employer. Of the $7,500,000,000 that was requested, only $900,000,000 will be guaranteed to the island by Congress and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it had awarded $243,000,000 to help residents with damage not covered by private insurance.

And when all of that money makes its way to The USVI it won’t be in the form of legal tender. It will be in the form of tarps, nails, wood, roofing supplied and other building materials. The people of the USVI have an overwhelming desire to rebuild their lives and these chassis trailers will make that hope a reality in every corner of the island.

The only trailers that fit the specifications outlined by FEMA and could be acquired within 30 days happened to be in Pennsylvania. For most companies stationed in Florida, that would be an immediate problem, but our leadership has shipped valuable gaming trailers and other large items throughout the United States and to other countries as far South Africa. So we knew our first call had to be too all of the logistics companies we had in our network as of October 2017. Getting the trailers from Pennsylvania to West Palm Beach was no problem. We had one of our trusted heavy haul drivers hitch the load and have it delivered overnight. We then turned our focus to what we thought would be another easy process, getting the trailers out of Florida and onto the USVI. We quickly found that our trusted logistics partners had their ability to deliver discontinued due to Hurrican Irma. It turns out that the port was being controlled by the government to ensure that all essential items like food, water, and medical supplies were being delivered first with all other “non-essential” items to be waitlisted. Since our partner couldn’t get on the island, his company helped us facilitate delivery through the only company that had the rights to deliver to the island. It was on us at that point to convince them that these chassis trailers were beyond a normal necessity like food or water because they were the only thing that could deliver the food and water that was packed into the containers. After the continued conversations, they finally book the trailers for one of their shipments and the trailers were delivered with 1 day to spare before the 10 business day delivery that we had specified in our order. It’s worth noting that if the shipping company would have taken our advice earlier, the trailers would have actually been delivered within 4 business days.