A fire that gutted an essential 70,000-square-foot inventory building at New Pig Corp. in Tipton is still under investigation, but company officials continue to push forward to build a new building on the site.
\nThe fire broke out in Building Two at the contained absorbant manufacturing site at approximately 10 p.m. on Oct. 31. When the smoke cleared early the next morning, the entire contents of the building \u2013 which included the company\u2019s entire inventory, customer service area, sales area, technical services area, distribution, building and grounds and cafeteria \u2013 was amongst a pile of mangled metal and smoldering debris.
\nAlthough fire investigators have been feverishly trying to determine what caused the fire, company Chairman Ben Staplefeld said a cause has not yet been determined.
\n\u201cThe insurance company, the Pennsylvania fire marshal and literally dozens of different inspectors have been on this site,\u201d said Staplefeld, noting the area remains under the jurisdiction of the fire marshal. \u201cWe had heard that it (the cause) would be turned over to us a few weeks ago, but it hasn\u2019t. Anything I would say would be pure speculation. We\u2019re hoping to know more soon, but as of today, a cause has yet to be determined.\u201d
\nAlthough there\u2019s no determination as to what caused the fire, there is movement of the aftermath. Staplefeld said the company is ready to rebuild.
\n\u201cWe are now in the process of rebuilding Building Two and are taking the steps you have to take until we can start building,\u201d said Staplefeld. \u201cWe wanted the building yesterday, but what we think could be reasonable is that it will be ready to operate by the end of July.\u201d
\nThe reason for the slow progress is due to legal muck the company must wade through. These include approvals from the state Department of Environmental Protection and Army Corps of Engineers.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re working on the design of the building,\u201d said Staplefeld. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be smaller. If anything, it\u2019s going to be bigger.\u201d
\nAmazingly, the company did not miss a beat because of the destructive fire.
\n\u201cWe are as much back to normal as you can be, considering we lost our entire inventory,\u201d said Staplefeld. \u201cWe had customer service back operating by eight o\u2019clock the next day.
\n\u201cNot fully, but enough that it was not an inconvenience to our customers. And that was our goal.\u201d
\nAccording to Staplefeld, as he and his employees were standing outside the building on Halloween night and watching as flames shot through the roof of the building and all had the same thought: \u201cNo matter what, this has got to be invisible to our customers.\u201d
\n\u201cThis was not their (customers) problem,\u201d said Staplefeld. \u201cIt was ours.\u201d
\nStaplefeld said hundreds of employees worked around the clock for \u201cdays and days and days\u201d to make sure the customers were not inconvenienced.
\n\u201cIn a period of a little bit more than three weeks, we came out of backorder status, which is an incredible accomplishment,\u201d said Staplefeld. \u201cI had no doubt that the people at New Pig would respond to the challenge and they did just that. They\u2019re a special group of people.\u201d
\nStaplefeld also credited the businesses and community for the ability to continue to push forward despite the fire.
\n\u201cThe vendors that supply our raw materials and the local groups that supported us during this time have been tremendous,\u201d said Staplefeld. \u201cPeople and groups offered us trucks, warehouse space, food, highlifts, forklifts, tractors, drivers, workers..whatever they could.
\n\u201cNobody was asking for anything, these tremendous people just wanted to help.\u201d
\nAs the company awaits the \u201cgo-ahead\u201d from local and state agencies for the proper building permits, New Pig continues to accommodate employees and the business itself with outside assistance.
\nIt is currently leasing the previous C-Cor.net building in the Ardie J. Dillen Industrial Park and houses the customer sales, service and technical support areas. The company is renting a building from Ward Warehousing for inventory. \u201cRight now, everyone is sitting on everyone else\u2019s lap and bumping elbows,\u201d said Staplefeld. \u201cIt\u2019s not ideal working conditions, but it\u2019s getting the job done.\u201d
\nAccording to the website, since 1985, New Pig has been providing innovative products and services to industrial, institutional and governmental facilities. The company has grown into a multi-channel, multi-brand supplier of products designed specifically for liquid management, industrial safety and plant maintenance. It is committed to helping workplaces worldwide get clean…and stay clean. Today, New Pig serves more than 170,000 customers in more than 40 countries.
\nWhen New Pig invented the Original PIG\u00ae Absorbent Sock, the world’s first contained absorbent, it revolutionized industrial cleanup industry. Today, the company offers the largest selection of contained absorbents in the world: absorbent mats, socks, booms, pillows and pans. It also carries well-known, proven products for material handling, personal protection, spill response, liquid filtration and workplace safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A fire that gutted an essential 70,000-square-foot inventory building at New Pig Corp. in Tipton is still under investigation, but company officials continue to push forward to build a new building on the site. The fire broke out in Building Two at the contained absorbant manufacturing site at approximately 10 p.m. on Oct. 31. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}