Living on the South Carolina coast means that you are always at risk of being exposed to hazardous weather conditions throughout hurricane season. Ann Freeman, on the other hand, was concerned about the additional danger posed by the epidemic.
‘What do I do if there’s an evacuation or a storm, and there’s all this coronavirus going around, and there are issues with the hotels?’ Ms. Freeman expressed herself. “So I thought to myself, ‘Perhaps this is the right time.’”
That’s why Ms. Freeman invested $12,400 in a Generac backup generator for her house on Johns Island, a sea island off the Charleston peninsula, last year. The waiting period, which lasted about three months, seemed excessive.
Last year, demand for backup generators increased dramatically as housebound Americans concentrated on preparing their houses for the worst, just as a wave of severe weather guaranteed that many of them were forced to deal with the consequences.
They are manufactured by a single firm, Generac, which has been in business for 62 years and accounts for approximately 75 percent of standby home generator sales in the United States. Generac is headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin. In recent years, it has been a Wall Street favourite, because to its domination of the market and the rising danger presented by more unpredictable weather patterns.
Generac’s stock price has increased by over 800 percent since the end of 2018, and the company’s earnings have more than quadrupled since the beginning of June 2020. Customers’ wait periods have increased to about seven months as a result of high demand and supply chain snarls caused by the pandemic. The business just built a new facility in Trenton, S.C., which is its third plant manufacturing home generators.
