Trade Journals for the Concrete Industry

In late October 2012, Superstorm Sandy brought much of the East Coast to its knees with hurricane force winds, torrential rains and flood- ing storm surges. Sandy’s economic impact could exceed $70 billion according to recent estimates. One company in the storm’s path that made it through relatively unscathed was Coastal Pipeline Products Corp. located in Calverton on the eastern end of Long Island, New York. While the 95,000 ton-per-year precaster’s lights barely flickered in the storm, many of its 50 employees were not so lucky. “I live on the sou- thern coast of Long Island and we were hit pretty hard,” notes operations manager Don Raymond. “We lost power at my house for about six days, but many others were hit much worse. Many in this region lost everything.” Today, the area continues to recover and rebuild. Coastal Pipeline and many other precasters in the area are beginning to fill orders for storm-related reconstruction projects and, at the same time, are experiencing an overall uptick in construction investments.