Valmont has been pushing back our delivery dates on planned projects by 2-6 weeks. This is due to many factors, almost all of them are external. For one, we haven't been able to retain or hire too many new employees, the shop conditions are hot, many days this summer have reached well above 85 degrees, in our shops in Valley NE, Tulsa OK, Monterrey MX and especially our shop in Brenham, TX, this has caused many people to seek employment elsewhere.
Another problem that I ran into just this week, the state of Texas has been getting torrential rains, a project that was supposed to deliver last Tuesday had been rejected due to the delivery site getting more than 9 inches of rain in less than 72 hours (as of September 19th, Port Arthur, TX has received 15.5 inches of rainfall). This caused the delivery truck to be turned away, driver had to return to the shop and unload poles due to the uncertainty of when the weather will improve in Texas. Now we have millions of dollars worth of poles that are sitting in our storage yard, we do not know when will be able to deliver these, and we cannot invoice until the poles are successfully delivered.