Meeting the Cornerstones

2022 began in earnest for Storm Geomatics deploying teams far and wide around the UK. With a full order book Survey Managers, Mark Kieras and Steve Drew ran a tight schedule, deploying trained surveyors, equipment and vehicles to projects in a timely manner. Their focus was to ensure deadlines and budgets were achieved whilst good safety practices adhered to. Through Storm’s cornerstone “Deliver on Time”, customer expectations are met from instruction to project data delivery.

During January a team of surveyors carried out topographic surveys on four areas along the River Thames in West London. Two of the surveys were full topographic surveys of existing weirs to enable the design of new fish passes. The aim to improve fish migration upstream to areas where there is hopefully less sewage and pollution, a sadly increasing problem on this river. The team, lead by senior surveyor, Jon Teall, called upon their own in-depth knowledge and previous experience surveying similar sites to ensure a safe completion, within the client’s deadline date for the project. They undertook a combination of traditional survey techniques alongside laser scanning to observe inaccessible areas with a single beam sonar in deeper areas of the water. Throughout the project Jon and his team liaised with Storm’s client and also the Environment Agency to ensure the appropriate data was captured. Resulting in Storm’s fourth Cornerstone “Adding Superior Value” being achieved.

Whilst visiting the GeoBusiness show in late 2021, Mike Hopkins invested in a Tridrone unmanned survey vessel. The new equipment was purchased from Seafloor systems Inc, California, USA. The vessel has an inbuilt Sonarmite Single Beam Echosounder and is to be deployed to survey lakes, ponds and river cross sections where wading is deemed unsafe. Please do check back in February to read how surveyor Alex Lyall has put it to use on the river Tees, Near Darlington. Alex commented “I believe the Tridrone will be in high demand as it will allow Storm Geomatics to survey hard to reach areas more efficiently, safely and accurately”. Watch this space!

Sadly on the last Saturday of the month MD Mike Hopkins received a call at 10.30pm from the alarm monitoring company to alert him a break in was taking place at Storm’s headquarters. Having broken in by cutting a large hole in the building wall the thieves stole the entire fleet of Trimble survey equipment stored in the building. With a fast response from the local Warwickshire Police Force and the use of the Trimble Sentinel Track and Locate app all the equipment was found within a mile of Storm’s headquarters where the thieves had dumped it. Fortunately, this time they did not gain anything from their efforts and Storm were fully operational on Monday morning thanks to surveyors Toby, Tom and Laurence giving up their Sunday to check and recalibrate the kit. Although a great inconvenience to operations, Storm’s clients were unaffected by the break-in and a great team effort ensured this time the thieves did not prosper!

Don’t forget – All the wet and wild adventures from Storm can be viewed via our LinkedIn page @Storm Geomatics Limited and our other social media channels. Twitter @stormgeomatics Instagram @stormgeomatics1