Employees at PS Energy Group in Dunwoody watched closely Saturday as Superstorm Sandy rolled up the East Coast with a vengeance. There would be work to do when the storm passed, they knew. They just had to wait until it hit and their specialized services were needed.
Now that Sandy is gone, the company is busy aiding recovery efforts in the ravaged communities. Its job is providing emergency fuel for vehicles operated by some of the utility companies that are working there to restore power.
Those vehicles need gas, but that is a hard-to-come-by commodity in the region. PS Energy sent trucks to deliver gas to the area, and they have been busy refueling the vehicles of its client companies, including Georgia Power, that are aiding in the effort.
It is one small, little-known part of what will be a complex and lengthy recovery.
“We’re there for the duration. How long that is, we don’t know,” said Roger Murray, chief operating officer of PS Energy.
The 27-year-old company’s core business is managing fuel supply and usage of corporate fleets. But the company launched an emergency fueling service in 1995, and it has been involved in many major storm recovery operations since, including Hurricane Katrina.
Murray said the company has about 65 to 70 vehicles working on the Sandy restoration effort at any given time. That’s a lot, although not quite as many as were used at post-Katrina refueling sites, where PS Energy had more than 100 trucks. But the scope of work with Sandy could grow, he added.
As big as Sandy has been, PS Energy was prepared to respond when the storm came.
The company had marshaled its vehicles in a staging location outside of the area where the storm was expected to hit most heavily. They were moved in as soon as it was deemed safe and went to work.
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