We did not know what was coming to our community on August 10, 2020.

The day started out as normal and the forecast was not unusual in any particular way.  Then, around 12:30 pm the sky got dark, it started to rain heavily, and the wind started to blow.

We are not talking about a breeze here, or even some strong gusts.  We are talking about something called a derecho that delivered sustained straight-line winds reaching 140 mph for 45 minutes.  The destruction—to crops, to trees, to buildings, to electric and internet connectivity, and to lives—was unlike anything most of us had ever seen.

At ATS, we were lucky in many ways.  We lost 75% of our evergreen trees, part of the massive loss of tree canopy in the Cedar Rapids area.  We lost electricity for quite some time and replacement of our roof is in the future but other than that, there was only minor damage to our building.  Overall, we felt quite blessed that our company’s headquarters made it through the derecho without sustaining major damage.

Of course, having this happen on top of everything else going on in the world now was no picnic. However, sometimes all you can do is pick yourself up, help clean up the mess, and keep moving forward.

Because of the business we are in, we could not help but think about how things might have been different if we had had some warning what was headed our way that day.  A strong reminder of why we always are encouraging companies to invest in a strong predictive maintenance program.  If you have some advance notice that something is not quite right with your equipment, you can address the problem before it leads to something catastrophic—like a sustained shutdown of your operation.

The derecho proved that not every problem can be predicted, but when it comes to your equipment, predictive maintenance can give you that all important heads up that allows you to fix a small problem before it becomes a big problem.  We’re still here to provide a high level of professional, consistent and accurate reliability solutions in partnership with our clients.  #yoursuccessisoursuccess #iowastrong