Greetings from Sunny Sheffield
Last week I was telling you about some good news and tales of our road to recovery. You can read about it here.
It's now been 27 days since the AW inferno, and what the team here has achieved in that time is almost impossible to believe. Everyday we are putting more products back on-line, everyday finding better ways to ship more orders, everyday everyone is pulling all the stops out. The spirit of recovery is burning on full power. Everyday we pass a small milestone, everyday we recover another few steps.
Thank you for your support, both with continuing to place orders and with the continued messages of good wishes and encouragement. The AW community spirit is fantastic and really holding us together.
Almost everybody has been supportive, for this I am grateful, because the ones that are not really break your heart.
Yesterday I spoke to the fire officer trying to get a copy of the forensic report, like everyone, I want to know how the AW inferno happened. The two insurance companies involved and the fire service have commissioned forensic reports but no-one it seems is prepared or able to give me a copy as they say it is only available to interested parties! I'm keenly interested I protested, nobody is more (insert expletive) interested than me!.. I told the fire officer, and he said yes I can see that. I cannot give you the report but I can tell you what it says.. then he said "This is a one in a million chance accident, followed by a perfect storm of events". What happened he thought, and he thought the other reports would agree - is that a particular residue of oil had reacted with the cotton lint inside used face masks in the bin creating a slow burn chemical reaction. We had been told by health and safety to keep IBC those large containers of the non-flammable oils outside, and the bin was near an IBC.. the reaction started at 23.23 in the evening - six hours after it had been last touched, within 20 minutes the even the non-flammable oil was hot enough to burn and the fire big enough to reach the building , within the hours - even though the fire brigade came quickly the whole block had burned down in an hour. It's all on CCTV. It's monumental, like a biblical disaster.
So the insurance company are sitting on this report, to try and protect their legal position, they are, it would appear trying to riddle out of liability on a technicality. This makes me really angry, because surly that fact that FACE MASKS CAN CAUSE FIRES.. should be big news no?? Anyway they are down in London and don't reply my calls, they don't rush to inform us of anything after 27 days I finally received a call from a "private number" to apologise for not calling us back, from a guy who would only give me his first name.
So we are getting on with the recovery, AW is big enough to recover without help from the insurance, but we will fight them until we get justice. This kind of uncaring hanging us out to dry is incredibly distressing on top of everything else.
If anyone one has advice on large insurance claims, because me or anyone I know has any experience of this. Yes we have a lawyer who specialises in this lined up, but not engaged yet.
Please spread the news, dispose of those medical face masks carefully, not in contact with any oily substance, put them in a plastic bag when disposing of them.
Sorry for the rant. Moving on..
It's really hot everywhere.. we are melting here and I bet you are to. It's even hotter in Asia.. despite the heat they are working well in the AW outposts.
Today - Mr Chatterjee loaded a contain in India (45c). Coco loaded one in China (37c), and Ringo loaded one in Bali (32c). They always send me pictures of them being loaded.. so a few more weeks and we will have a wave of new stock. In those places it's even hotter than here.. India hitting almost 50c in some places, I don't envy them loading in that heat.
Before it all comes we simply have to find a new warehouse, arrraghh!!! because there is no space here and outside storage in Sheffield is filling up.
We are getting lots of new things on-line, lots of things back in stock. Everyone is pulling together to make it happen.
News from AW Spain.. they are also really busy, as many European customers switch to the Spain distribution centre for stock. But they still had time to care for a rare breed of bird that wondered in to the warehouse seemingly lost from it's mum.
Tony our man in Spain, went to the rescue.. Strangely, weirdly this rare event happened again, in the space of two days two rare breed birds saved. Animal rescue came to take them away.
Have a great weekend, wear a mask and... for goodness sake dispose of it carefully.
Take care.