Help in Time of Uncertainty: HVAC Company Reaches Out to Flood Victims

Oct. 4, 2024
Call Dad AC & Heating has been shifting resources due to flood damage at its Asheville branch. Employees have done an admirable job of helping others.

Note: it's been difficult to reach North Carolina HVAC contractors and distributors. We will update this with other stories as we receive them.

Employees at one HVAC business in North Carolina are doing what they can to help Hurricane Helene flood victims.

We spoke with Katie Biddle, Head of Brand Experience & Marketing at Call Dad AC & Heating, based in Charlotte, NC, with seven locations in North and South Carolina. More than one of its branches are located in areas hardest hit by hurricane-force winds and flooding.

“One of our locations is in Asheville, so we’ve been very impacted. We’ve moved our resources out west from the east to be able to help them while also trying to take care of our other customer base,” Biddle said.  “Our Asheville office is not necessarily closed, but people are unable to travel within that location. Asheville employees are not able to get out right now, so we’ve moved people from our other locations to be able to help people in our Hickory or Columbia, South Carolina locations.”

Biddle acknowledged that there will be many ruined HVAC systems, but that’s to be determined after people are more secure and communication has been restored.

“There will be systems ruined and other situations, but we haven’t received a ton of phone calls yet as most of the power is not back and there’s no cell phone service.  We’re anticipating that calls will start coming in on Monday. We’re working on a blog that will explain what steps people will need to take, resources such as electricians, and what to do in different scenarios, such as if the system has been underwater.

“Our team was in Florida at a conference this week, and one of the topics of conversation was how can we help to get to people as quickly as possible. There are so many uncertainties,” Biddle said through some tears, “and we want to be able to help as much as we can. We’re collecting supplies at all of our eight locations. We have a comfort advisor who lives in Marion we couldn’t reach so our sales manager drove up to check on him. He was fine, he just didn’t have cell phone reception.”

The Call Dad team will be distributing supplies to any who need it, not just to customers.

“One gentleman in Hickory will be taking them to Asheville and distributing them wherever he can,” Biddle said. 

 

 

About the Author

Terry McIver | Content Director - CB

A career publishing professional, Terence 'Terry' McIver has served three diverse industry publications in varying degrees of responsibility since 1987, and worked in marketing communications for a major U.S. corporation.He joined the staff of Contracting Business magazine in April 2005.

As director of content for Contracting Business, he produces daily content and feature articles for CB's 38,000 print subscribers and many more Internet visitors. He has written hundreds, if not two or three, pieces of news, features and contractor profile articles for CB's audience of quality HVACR contractors. He can also be found covering HVACR industry events or visiting with manufacturers and contractors. He also has significant experience in trade show planning.