Marshall Henderson on Hurricane Michael

Marshall Henderson, President, Horton Outdoor

Hurricane Michael was the 3rd most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the United States.  It travelled across the Florida Panhandle on October 10.  Mexico City, Florida and Panama City, Florida suffered the worst damage.  Insider asked Horton Outdoor’s Marshall Henderson to talk about the storm.

What impact did Hurricane Michael have on billboards?

I was in Panama City yesterday with Matt Schulze with Selective Structures (who built our structures) doing a visual inspection of every sign.  I was very pleased to see that our structures have almost no damage.  I was concerned as we also have at least one Formetco digital face on every structure so we could not just take down vinyl and have wind frames up in preparation.  As of yesterday all of my billboards and digital faces in Panama City Beach are standing tall and burning bright after Formetco had technicians on site earlier this week.

Hurricane Michael’s Path on October 10

Panama City itself east of the Hathaway bridge is a different story…our structure on that side is still in good shape, there is still no power so we don’t know everything yet…I saw many poles down and damage in both Panama City and Panama City Beach but it was very sad to see the extent of the devastation in Panama City itself and north and east of that.  From the billboard perspective many of those structures were older and the storm was devastating to them.  I saw very few without significant damage.  It looks more like a tornado hit everything.  Most of Panama City Beach seems to be working through it and open for business.  East of there, those people need our prayers.  There is a lot of work going on and we saw workers from far and wide pitching in but that is going to be a very long recovery.

Were you able to prepare of Hurricane Michael.

As far as our preparation, that storm moved in so quickly, there was not much we could do.  In the end we simply powered down the Digitals Tuesday night when the first waves of the storm were coming in. The next task is to make sure our locations stand tall for the next time as well.

What will you be doing post storm to maintain the plant?

We will at a minimum be changing out all of our head bolts and making sure that areas of stress remain strong but that is what we are evaluating now.

Thanks for the update Marshall.  Insider hears from Natalie Kessler that K2Media’s Florida plant was far enough west of the storm to avoid any damage. 

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