Williamstown, W.Va.-based Leasco Industrial Services responded promptly after Hurricane Katrina to the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s need for industrial vacuum trucks in Gulfport, Miss.

The company initially deployed three Guzzler NX vacuum trucks, which went to work immediately to open up the catch basins along U.S. Highway 90. Subsequently, Leasco sent an additional vacuum truck and a shower-trailer with a self-contained water system to allow workers to clean themselves up.

“The industrial vacuum trucks are basically the world’s largest Shop-Vac on wheels,” said John Dougherty, vice president Leasco Industrial Services. “They suck both wet or dry material with 27 inches of vacuum at 150 cubic feet a minute.”

The one-year-old company, a branch of Marietta, Ohio-based Leasco Equipment Services, also sent two combination sewer cleaner trucks to the Gulf region and plans to send another this week. In the beginning of cleanup efforts, the equipment was operating seven days a week, 12 hours a day, but workers have cut down to six, 12-hour days to get some much-needed rest, said Dougherty, who has visited the region twice in the wake of Katrina. Leasco Industrial Services began operation in October 2004 with one Guzzler industrial vacuum truck. The company also specializes in hydro-excavation equipment.

“I started Leasco Industrial because our customers were asking us for a broader product offering, and to provide contractors a source to rent good, reliable, new or nearly new equipment such as hydro-excavators and vacuum trucks,” said Mark Hall, owner of Leasco Equipment and Leasco Industrial.

Leasco Equipment Services has been in the rental business since 1989.