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Storm Chaser

Hard-working contractor employs Tigercat grinders in intensive material reduction operations, helping residents to return to some sense of normalcy after devastating natural disasters.

— Paul Iarocci

Dustin and David Cooper.
Another day at the office with Dustin and David Cooper.
Dustin Cooper, in partnership with his father, David Cooper, is the owner of South East Mowing. The Bristol, Tennessee native started in business straight out of high school in 2008, primarily taking on federal, state, and municipal government grass-cutting contracts on roadsides and highway embankments. “We started off with four John Deere tractors, grew it to 25 or 30 tractors, and then started filling the gaps with right-of-way clearing work.”

Hungry for growth, Dustin was constantly looking for new opportunities and diversification. As the ROW contract work increased, he found that the crew was generating a lot of debris. “We were looking for a way to reduce that vegetation and we knew we could put at least one grinder to work.” The company purchased a second-hand Tigercat 6900 from Tidewater Equipment’s Newberry, South Carolina branch in June 2024. “After we got one, we were looking for ways to expand.” Storm debris reduction seemed a logical choice.

We've got a core group of guys from Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia and Texas. We travel everywhere like a big family.


— Dustin Cooper

Dustin was well accustomed to travel, having completed mowing and ROW contracts throughout the southern US. Crucially, he also had previous knowledge of the sector and the major players. “When I was growing up, my dad was in the disaster recovery business, so I knew this was something that I could drive towards.”

Dustin explains that his father, David Cooper, quit high school and went to work in a coal mine. Wanting more than a wage, he began supplying the mine with timber. “He would work an eight-hour shift, then go cut mining props, carry them out on his back, load them on a one-ton truck, carry them to the same mine, and sell them the next morning before he went to work.” It was a roundabout way to get into the high-value hardwood harvesting industry in eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia. “He was running a pretty good-sized veneer wood operation, and that market crashed in 1997.” The downturn happened to roughly coincide with Hurricane Fran in September 1996, prompting David to work on his very first storm cleanup in North Carolina. David’s disaster recovery business progressed from there.

Nearly three decades later, Dustin ramped up his own storm cleanup business quickly and aggressively. Taking possession of the first 6900 in June, he followed up with the purchase of a second used Tigercat 6900 in July. In November, he purchased his third 6900 brand new. By early June 2025, the crew had collectively put over 6,000 hours on the three machines.

Disaster declaration

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) coordinates the federal response to disasters that receive a Presidential disaster declaration. Once a weather event is declared, FEMA hires a prime contractor, responsible for all aspects of the recovery and cleanup operations. Dustin’s company is classified as a subcontractor, working under the prime contractor. “My father has been around all these prime contractors for so long. They knew him, and of course they were willing to give me a chance because of him.”

In early June, we visited a cleanup operation in Coffee County, Georgia, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall nine months prior on September 26, 2024, near Perry, Florida. The Category 4 storm carved a 500-mile (800 km) path of destruction, bringing severe winds, heavy rain, surges up to twenty feet (6 m), and mass flooding throughout the southeastern US. Total estimated economic loss is in the range of $225–250 billion.
Tigercat 6900 grinder and T234B laoder
With strong technical capabilities, excellent parts and service support from Tidewater Equipment, and a quality product, Dustin has experienced high uptime with the 6900 grinders.
Dustin walks us through the process. “Once an emergency declaration is made, the prime contractor mobilizes. In this case, it is Southern Disaster Recovery, or SDR. Homeowners and businesses are responsible for getting the debris to the roadside. The load-and-haul subcontractor, Pride Contracting, based in Middlesex, North Carolina, collects the debris from the street and brings it to designated, permitted temporary dump sites. Then we come in to do the material reduction, turning the debris into a recyclable product.” FEMA is responsible for finding outlets for the ground material. In this case, the product is being hauled to blueberry farms in the county to be used as crop bedding.

The volume of vegetation debris generated by a hurricane is difficult to comprehend. In Coffee County alone, in the first five months of this year, South East Mowing (the sole grinding contractor for the county) processed nearly five million yards of material, reducing it to roughly a million and a half yards (one cubic yard is equal to 0,76 m³). The three machines work side-by-side, twelve hours per day, seven days per week, processing 40,000 yards of material every day. The entire operation consumes over 1,500 US gallons (5 700 L) of fuel per day, so fuel delivery planning is an important logistical consideration. To maintain mechanical availability, Dustin has a night maintenance crew that also works seven days a week.

Dustin places a very high value on his crew. They follow wherever the next contract takes him. “Last year we were in Houston, Texas, working on Hurricane Beryl.” Including grinder operators, excavator operators, truck drivers, and the four-man night-shift maintenance crew, it’s a 40-person operation. “We've got a core group of guys from Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Texas. We travel everywhere like a big family. We rent houses for the whole crew and try to keep them all close together. Everybody pretty much lives like a big family in a compound.”

It’s a gruelling pace, but it’s the nature of the work. Speed is of the essence. “Since June of last year, I've been home four days. We didn't go home for Thanksgiving, but we all took the day off. I cooked a big meal here in Georgia and we fed everybody. I drove home Christmas Eve morning and drove back here on Christmas Day. And I went home for Easter Sunday.”

Dustin notes that he tries to maintain a close relationship with the load-and-haul contractors, noting that they are his first defence against metals and other foreign materials getting mixed in with the feedstock. Any metal or construction and demolition material that does make it to the yard is separated out and carted to the landfill. “We don't want to put it through the grinder, and we don't want to send it to the end user. Of course, we're relying on the landowners not to put it with the vegetated debris, and we are relying on the trucks that are picking it up. The haulers are motivated to keep it as clean as possible to keep everyone moving. If we can't grind, they can’t haul.” But as Dustin explains, the most important person in the whole equation is the grinder operator. “The operator is the life of that machine.”
FEMA designated temporary dump site for debris from Hurricane Helene
Dustin’s three grinders eat away at a mountain of debris. This designated temporary dump site is just one of hundreds that have been in operation in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
The operator must feed the machine optimally, maintaining a constant flow of material. The operator must make sure the material is clean, making time to shake excess sand out of root masses and, importantly, watching the pile for foreign debris — metal, rock, asphalt, and concrete. “It's all on their eyes as to what goes into the machine. It is one of the main reasons we've bought the new T234B — to get the operator up higher compared with an excavator.”

Dustin is impressed with the T234B loader, calling it a perfect match for the grinder. Efficient hydraulics and the four-cylinder Tigercat-FPT engine deliver outstanding fuel economy south of two gallons (7,5 L) per hour. It is equipped with a Rotobec RPA grapple sized perfectly for the application — large enough to keep a good flow of material at the infeed and small enough to fit into the infeed trough. “We think we are going to save a lot on wear parts in the back. We are not going to be beating up our chains and our floors because he's easing the logs into the trough. If you go over there and watch the bucket thumb machine, he can't go to the bottom because then he can't open his grapple without contacting the sidewalls.” The high-rise cab significantly improves visibility, allowing the operator to see into the trough. This decreases feeding cycle times and results in a cleaner infeed with less foreign material. Another advantage of a rotating grapple over a bucket is less worry about positioning the grinder at the particular angle required to feed it. The operator can work more quickly with flexibility to rotate the load to best fit the infeed.

Time pressure

Time is always of the essence in disaster cleanup operations. “FEMA’s goal is to get the community back to a normal state as quickly as possible, so they push very hard to get it done and get us in and out to give the community back some sort of a normal life,” says Dustin. “They're going to prioritize the high-traffic areas to get those as quickly as possible.” There are many additional considerations around prioritization. For instance, in the days following a storm event, material left in drainage ditches or around culverts can cause another round of flooding if additional rainfall occurs. As more time passes, downed vegetation dries out, becoming a potential fuel load, and increasing the risk of fire. Because the dump sites are not infinite in size, Dustin’s crew must work quickly to get through the material and get the mulched product moved out so that the next round of biomass can come in.

Maintaining a high rate of mechanical availability is critical to meeting the deadlines imposed by the contracts. For Dustin, it comes down to excellent dealer and factory support combined with a large measure of self-sufficiency.

“As a kid, my dad always sent me with the mechanic truck, and that's what I rode around in all my life. I have always been good with my hands — able to take something apart and put it back together. I enjoyed it and picked up mechanical knowledge as I went along. If you can't do your own mechanical work to a certain level, then this business becomes difficult in a very big way. If I know how to fix it, I'm back up and running in an hour, whereas if I'm waiting on a service truck, it may turn into 24 hours.”
6900 grinders
The three machines work side-by-side, twelve hours per day, seven days per week, processing 40,000 yards of material every day.
Dustin has relied on quick parts turnaround from Tidewater Equipment Newberry. The dealership is flexible, working around Dustin’s schedule to get parts to him on weekends or whenever he needs them. In addition, “We carry a 53-foot trailer that is completely stocked with an inventory of wear parts, including blocks, teeth, face plates, hammers, chain links. If we find ourselves working further away from a dealership, we're just going to up our game even further on the parts that we carry.”

Working in the southeast on his various mowing and ROW contracts, Dustin was exposed to a lot of Tigercat forestry equipment and became friends with several people that were running Tigercat machines. “They talked about how good they were and how good the support was. And that's hard to come by.” With a solid mechanical background and the specific knowledge of the machines gained over the past year, Dustin has been able to rely on phone support from the service team at Tidewater in Newberry, as well as drawing on the expertise of Randy McDonald, Tidewater’s Industrial Sales Manager and grinder expert, often avoiding the need for a technician onsite. “That's been monumental. When I was in Houston, it was a phone call away to get me back up and running. A lot of the support has actually been phone support, and we are doing the repairs.”

If you can't do your own mechanical work to a certain level, then this business becomes difficult in a very big way.


— Dustin Cooper, owner of South East Mowing

The operation in Coffee County is 250 miles (400 km) from Newberry, and Dustin has never been closer than 180 miles (290 km) from the dealership. Newberry Branch Manager, Kevin Wright, points out that it is very important for clearing and grinding customers — who typically work over vast geographic areas — to realize what kind of service Tidewater, with additional back-up from the Tigercat Industries field service team, can provide regardless of proximity to the dealership.

Meanwhile, back in Tennessee, the municipalities and tree service companies are still tipping brush. If Dustin ever manages to get one of his grinders back home, he has a yard full of debris waiting to be double-ground for mulch or compost production. For all of Dustin’s many challenges, finding material to put through the grinder is not one of them.
Tigercat 6900 grinder.

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