Gradall Industries Inc. has introduced a Storm Recovery Series collection of highly productive machines designed to help municipalities, counties and contractors handle multiple challenges in the wake of hurricanes, tornadoes and other weather disasters.
“The summer and fall of 2020 is predicted to be a busier-than-normal hurricane season, from the Gulf Coast, around Florida, and continuing up into New England,” says Mike Popovich, Gradall Vice President of Excavator Products. “We are working closely with our distributor network, especially in these areas, to make these Storm Recovery Series machines readily available to help first responders access and clean up disaster areas very quickly.”
Highway speed Gradall excavators can be driven over highways at 60 mph, without the need for a lowboy trailer, enabling them to get to disaster sites quickly and remove fallen trees and debris to create access for other emergency vehicles.
Once on a disaster site, and during the recovery process, the excavators can be equipped with a wide range of useful attachments including fixed-thumb grapples, tree limb shears, boom extensions and buckets, enabling them to collect and load tree limbs and trunks, rocks, household debris and building materials into trucks, as well as open drainage ditches and waterways.
Gradall models with highway speed undercarriages include the XL 3100V at 40,930 lbs. with a 27-ft., 3-in. boom reach; XL 4100V at 49,684 lbs. with a 30-ft., 3-in. boom reach; and XL 5100V at 57,670 lbs. with a 33-ft., 9-in. boom reach.
Gradall’s highway speed machine collection also includes Discovery Series models, developed in collaboration with Freightliner. The industry’s first crossover excavator models, with a Gradall upperstructure integrated into a Freightliner truck chassis, Discovery Series models are designed to fit into tight municipal equipment budgets. Two-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive Discovery Series models weigh from 32,200-34,500 lbs. and have a boom reach up to 24 ft., 11 in.
All Gradall machines are equipped with a telescoping, fully tilting boom, enabling operators to correctly position attachments for faster debris removal. The low working profile boom design enables Gradalls to work under bridges and tree limbs, reaching into piles of debris and handling work that conventional knuckle boom excavators cannot.
Continuing Gradall’s one-man, one-machine productivity philosophy, each of the Storm Recovery Series models is designed for optimum versatility, including grading, excavating, ditching and cleanup work, long after the impending threat of hurricane season damage subsides.
The only hydraulic excavator brand made only in America, Gradall is celebrating a 75-year history of versatility that includes Vacall jetting and vacuum machines. Also frequently used during storm recovery, vacuuming sand and opening sewer lines, Vacall machines are produced at the Gradall plant in New Philadelphia, OH.
