Caterpillar Supplies More than 1800 Generators for Hurricane Relief
Caterpillar announced that in response to historic floods and immeasurable damage brought by this year’s Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria, Cat Rental Power provided more than 1,800 generator sets to deliver more than 1.44 GW of power to affected areas. Forty-seven Caterpillar dealers, from as far away as Canada and California, responded to the needs of impacted areas.
Local dealers directly addressed customer demands, ensuring equipment and personnel reached affected areas before storms hit.
“Our Cat dealer network provides much more than access to the largest fleet of generator sets,” said Robb Homolka, Eastern Region sales manager for Cat Rental Power. “Its knowledgeable rental power representatives ready to assist customers in designing a system, delivering equipment, presiding technical support, service and maintenance – all in a time of crisis.”
The generators were deployed by land, sea and air to thousands of customers including hospitals, data centers, wastewater treatment plants, cellular towers and commercial and industrial facilities.
More than 320 generators sets have been supplied to FEMA to support their efforts to restore power to critical infrastructure to the most seriously impacted regions. As one of FEMA’s major suppliers and a source of reliable performance, Caterpillar Defense expects it will be asked to send additional generator sets to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Brian Rydell, Caterpillar Defense’s electric power marketing and contracts manager, credited the efforts and commitment of Foley Inc. and the staff of Caterpillar Defense for quickly arranging the procurement and transportation of the generators to the areas ravaged by the recent storms. “They have done a herculean job pulling the whole Cat Dealer Rental Network together to locate generator sets matched to FEMA’s requirements, comply with contractual terms, supply topnotch technical support and deliver the units in a matter of days.”
Caterpillar also supplied transformers, pumps, heaters, fuel tanks, miles of power cable and hundreds of light towers.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.