As Hurricane Matthew makes its way up the East Coast, multiple suppliers located in Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina are taking steps to ensure their business goes on as usual. Others have chosen to suspend business entirely while they batten down the hatches and ride out the storm.
IDProductsource, located in Port St. Lucie, Fla., closed today due to the weather, and plans to resume operations Oct. 10.
North Charleston, South Carolina-based Vapor Apparel will be open, but has made plans should the storm interfere with operations.
“We are ready,” said Chris Bernat, chief revenue officer and co-founder of Vapor Apparel. “We have a well-established hurricane preparedness plan that is part of the company’s standard operating procedures. We are prepared to ship through Thursday, but UPS suspended package services for the Charleston region on Wednesday. … We have weather-protected the equipment from the print division to protect against any major storm surges or roof issues that may occur. Our Union, S.C., cut and sew operations, which are located 2.5 hours inland, are in full operation.”
Bernat added that the company’s Charleston warehouse is closed today and tomorrow, but he expects normal service.
“The executive team here at Vapor Apparel remembers Hurricane Hugo,” he added. “[Thank you to] all the partners and customers who called to wish us well and see if they could help us. It is a true blessing to be part of such a great industry. We hope to be talking to everyone on Monday.”
More than three hours inland from North Charleston, Gaffney, South Carolina-based Jetline plans to keep everything going as planned, but expects to see an increase in orders moved from other vendors.
“We are almost 300 miles from the coast, and [are] running on all cylinders,” said Eric Levin, executive vice president of Prime Line and Jetline. “We anticipate some orders getting moved from other vendors, and have a plan in place for the increased volume.”
