The trusty City Hall clocks stopped suddenly at 11:41 p.m., shortly after two deadly F-4 tornados whipped through historic Jackson, Tennessee.

The RSC Equipment Rental store number 367, as well as the rest of the area, suffered greatly. The RSC store had no electricity or phone lines for three days. The building suffered broken windows and hail damage that also broke the windshields of the three nearby store trucks.

Behind the scenes, RSC Store Manager Preston Mysinger was making sure things were in order for RSC customers affected by the tornados.

"We ordered additional equipment from our stores in Nashville and Memphis to cover the increased demand," Mysinger said. "Because our phone lines were down, our customer care center fielded calls from local customers needing rental equipment. Then, they routed the calls to us to provide them with the assistance they needed."

"For three days, the customer service representatives and employees at the Jackson location fielded several hundred calls," says Mysinger. "Our phones were literally ringing off the hook. We fielded calls from 7 a.m. to midnight."

One company that came to the RSC store for help was Crocker Construction Company.

"Almost no phones were working in town," says Hal Crocker, owner of Crocker Construction Company. "We went into the RSC store and told Preston Mysinger that we needed a 110-foot personnel lift. He delivered it within five hours. It was amazing how quickly he responded and got the equipment to us."

Crocker used equipment from RSC to help with repairs for two major projects in the downtown Jackson area. The first was the Federal Court Building, which required $6 million in renovations. The second was the New Southern Building, a historic site, which sustained $4 million in damages.

"We started using the lift the day after the tornado, water-proofing and weather-proofing both sites," recalls Crocker. "RSC's quick turn-around really meant a lot to us"

As a direct result of the tornados, downtown Jackson spent $20 to $30 million on repairs and upgrades. Marilyn Steiger-Vandever, RSC's customer care center manager, says in times of chaos, the twenty-four-hour centralized dispatch system easily handles the demand.

"We can literally go into a lock-down mode," says Steiger-Vandever. "We can drop everything else we're doing to service large groups of customers in need, making sure they're being connected to the right person, quickly. Customers should feel confident that they will be getting top quality service from RSC, regardless of time or condition"

To contact the RSC customer care center, day or night, call 1-800-222-7777.