Scrap Yards are Among Hurricane Sandy’s Beneficiaries

As such, the Claremont Terminal scrap yard, along with its more than two dozen sister scrap yards, had to both prepare for the storm and be ready to reopen quickly to reap the unfortunate benefits from it: wrecked cars, trucks, water heaters, pipes, aluminum siding and the other metal mess that must be cleared for people and business to resume their lives.

Last week, listening to reports about the escalating severity of the storm, Daniel Dienst, chief executive of Claremont’s parent company, Sims Metal Management Ltd., shifted into high gear, conferring with one of his executives about what to do with a fleet of 52 New York-area barges ahead of the coming ocean surge and where to move critical and expensive equipment.

The global company, with $9 billion in revenue, operates 270 scrap yards around the world, 28 of which are on the East Coast.

Five days before Sandy struck, Mr. Dienst sat in his midtown Manhattan office and began going over hurricane protocol with managers of the East Coast yards, starting with Virginia: Secure excavators, front-end loaders and other equipment and barges, move vulnerable machines like forklifts inside, prepare water pumps and shut down electrical transformers.

Piles of metal, too heavy to blow away, could stay. “Get everybody out of the facilities. No heroes,” he told them. After his West Village home lost power, he moved his family in with friends, and worked that week from a hotel room giving directions and solace. “Some of our people have lost houses, and they’re dog-tired,” says the 47-year-old New Yorker.