Local Emergency Preparedness Company Dealing Influx of Orders Following Earthquakes

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The swarm of earthquakes throughout Utah has people on edge, but for one Utah company, it means around the clock business.

Blue Chip Group in Salt Lake City is the largest distributor of emergency food supplies in the entire country and they’re doing all they can to keep up with demand. They’re in the business of being prepared.

“We have 200-thousand square feet across the street and 50-thousand square feet here,” said DJ Sprague, with Blue Chip Group. “We have a lot of product here.”

The company can check the forecast and see when rain and snowstorms are coming. They can then get their product ready for shipments, but there are some things not even the professional preppers can predict.

“With earthquakes, of course you never really know (when they’re coming),” Sprague said.

On Monday, four more small earthquakes rattled Utah — two in Bluffdale and two in Emery County.

“In our last five days, our (web) traffic is up 13 percent and our sales are up 40 percent if we compare it to this time last month,” Sprague said.

Normally, the warehouse staffs about one shift, five days a week. As of Monday, there are two to three shifts a day, seven days a week.

“They’ll be here probably until midnight,” Sprague said, motioning to the warehouse workers. “We want to get orders out the same day they come in.”

They’re especially seeing an increase of orders for 72 hour kits, which means a lot of extra hours of warehouse prep time.

“That’s pretty much how it is,” Sprague said. “As soon as it starts to spike, we just bring in our teams.”

Although no one at Blue Chip group hopes for more earthquakes to hit our community, they’re glad people are preparing.

“It’s nice to see people taking it so seriously and they’re not just going to wait until it gets worse.”