Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Storm-Ready in Seconds: How Shark Tank’s StormBag Is Changing Hurricane and Severe Weather Prep
The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season is already underway—and it's expected to be an active one, with forecasts calling for 17 to 25 named storms, up to 13 hurricanes, and as many as 7 major hurricanes. For Florida’s community associations, that means flood preparedness is no longer optional—it’s urgent.
In this episode of Take It to the Board, host Donna DiMaggio Berger welcomes Maurice Huffman, inventor of StormBag—a revolutionary, sandless sandbag that’s changing the way neighborhoods and HOAs prepare for storms. Fresh off his appearance on Shark Tank Season 15, where he secured a $200,000 deal from Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner, Maurice shares the story behind StormBag, how it works, and why it’s gaining traction across Florida and beyond.
Unlike traditional sandbags, StormBags start out as lightweight, compact one-pound pouches that expand to 32-pound barriers when soaked in water—thanks to a polymer that absorbs 300 times its weight. They’re clean, reusable, easy to store, and simple enough for a single person to deploy in minutes—making them ideal for both single-family homes and high-rise buildings.
Maurice also opens up about the personal tragedy that led him to create StormBag after losing everything in the Paradise, California wildfires and experiencing flood damage shortly after. His Shark Tank journey provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at pitching to the Sharks and what happens after the cameras stop rolling.
As climate risks grow and storms become more intense, this episode offers community leaders and homeowners practical insights on better protecting your property with less effort, expense, and environmental impact.
Conversation Highlights:
- How the StormBag technology works
- A breakdown of StormBag’s cost and how it compares to traditional sandbags, including those distributed for free by some municipalities
- Guidance on how many StormBags are typically needed to protect the entrance of a multifamily building
- Estimates on the number of StormBags required to safeguard a 3,500-square-foot home from flooding
- Information on the storage space required to stockpile StormBags in advance of a storm
- The origin story behind StormBag and how the idea came to life
- Insights into Maurice’s experience pitching on Shark Tank and securing a deal with Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner
- The impact of endorsements from FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, and examples of how HOAs and local governments are adopting StormBag for flood control
- What community leaders and homeowners should keep in mind when it comes to flood preparedness and mitigation
Related Links:
- Resource: Becker Hurricane Preparedness and Recovery
- Online Class: Disaster Preparedness and Recovery
- Article: Shark Tank Episode
Hi everyone, I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Berger and this is Take it to the Board where we speak condo and HOA. With Florida's hurricane season fast approaching on June 1st, flooding preparedness is top of mind for many community associations. In this episode of Take it to the Board, I'm speaking with Maurice Hoffman, the inventor of StormBag, an innovative sandless sandbag that offers a faster, smarter way to protect against flooding. Maurice recently took this invention to ABC's Shark Tank on episode two of season 15 and secured a $200,000 investment deal from two sharks. Now he joins us on Take it to the Board to share how StormBag is making storm prep easier for neighborhoods and homeowners associations right when they need it most.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about how the Shark Tank-backed solution works, why it could be a game changer for Florida communities and how boards and association managers can use it to keep residents safe this storm season and, frankly, throughout the year. So, maurice, welcome to Take it to the Board.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it very much. I'm pretty excited to be here.
Speaker 1:I should say at the outset I'm a huge Shark Tank fan and I remember you and your episode, so I want to talk about that later. Wonderful, so listen just from the start. For our listeners who haven't heard about Storm Bag, what exactly is a storm bag and how does it work?
Speaker 2:Well, a storm bag is a burlap outer bag, then it has a linen liner inside and it looks pretty much like a sandbag would look when it's empty, just weighs one pound flat, and then we have our magic powder inside.
Speaker 2:Just a little bit, you can hardly even feel it. So when water hits that bag, the burlap and the linen is designed to let water in and hit that powder. Each one of those little tiny grains in that powder expands by 300 times its size, turns into a gel. Next thing you know, in a couple of minutes you have a full storm bag that weighs 32 pounds, just like a sandbag, and then has the same properties as a sandbag and the whole water back won't let any more water through. Once that thing is full and expanded, no more water comes through and the only water that drips off at this time is just the water that was in the in the burlap outside. So not only that, can you then build a wall like you would do with a regular sandbag, but you could also use it to, let's say, you're in the kitchen and your husband or somebody's trying to repair your sink under there and really doesn't quite maybe know what he's doing.
Speaker 2:And a pipe busts and a water starts flowing. Hey, you could just throw down one of those bags. It'll absorb five gallons of water. So it's great for interior flooding. For interior flooding and also what we found out it's really good for is for, especially in Florida. Let's say, if you have a condo that storm's coming in, you're on the fifth floor and there's always some water that comes underneath your balcony doors. It seeps in from this high pressure water that comes down from the rain. You just lay some of those outside. You know the water hits it, it'll swell up. You don't have to carry a 32 pound bag up there, you just lay them on the bottom of the door and as it swells up, because it's gel, it'll form around exactly the holes where the water was going through and stop it from coming in. And so it's 100 biodegradable, non-toxic.
Speaker 1:there's really nothing. If there was anything toxic for people who have pets or young children, any issues? Not at all.
Speaker 2:No issue at all. You can dispose of the bag afterwards. You can go in a regular landfill or, if you live in a hot climate Florida might not work so well for reuse. In a hot climate where there's not much humidity you can just lay it out in the sun and you can reuse it a few times.
Speaker 1:Well, I was going gonna ask you about that, so I have so many questions yeah, we start at the at the beginning, so it goes from one pound flat, yep what's it? You spray some water on it with a hose, presumably, um, or I guess if you're in a condo you could use a watering can, whatever and then it's going to the course of a few minutes. It's going to expand and it's going to because of the magic powder yeah, turn into a gel-like substance. Now we've got a heavy-duty, 32-pound sandbag.
Speaker 2:And now.
Speaker 1:I could also lay it out flat if I know I might have flooding, and then the water that's raining down from the skies will activate it.
Speaker 2:Is that correct Exactly, especially if you have it against the door. If you were just outside and there was a big rush of water, it would just sweep the bag away before it expands. But for this Honda thing it's perfect for doors, you know, because it's going to press against the door, it's not going anywhere and it'll absorb the water. Turn into this perfect bag for that exact hole where the water is coming through because it's jelly, you know, it kind of forms around where it needs to and plug the hole.
Speaker 1:But once it's been activated passes, you can't make it flat again. At that point you're pretty much done, right.
Speaker 2:Well, in Florida it might be a little bit tougher because the humidity level is so high. But where I live here in California, in the almost desert place with 210 in the summer and no humidity, they'll dry out in a couple days and you can reuse it. So you know it it. If you have a nice dry place where it's airy, you could, you could dry them and reuse it. But but it's harder and should make human tradition.
Speaker 1:I have a sauna. Can I throw them in the sauna?
Speaker 2:yeah, turn on the heat, it'll work.
Speaker 1:Well, OK, so I'm thinking of my average association manager that I work with and we often.
Speaker 1:you know, we have a six month hurricane season here in Florida, so we talk a lot about hurricane preparedness and always it's a question of particularly in the big communities of how are we going to deploy all these people to help people get ready. If I'm telling you, there's not a lot of time involved with getting these things set up, other than taking them out of storage, wherever stored, laying them in strategic places, activating them and then shore up absolutely.
Speaker 2:not only does it make time sense, total time sense, because you don't have to send somebody to get the sandbags you don't't have to get, or if you have to shovel their own sandbags and oh my gosh all that. You can have 25 of them in a little box and that's like having 2000 pounds of sand in your cupboard, and it's a little box. I mean you can put those you know under your desk. You could theoretically have 6,000 pounds of sand in the back of your trunk by just having four box, three boxes. So it's definitely the number one thing. Secondly, the weight. If you have to carry those from your car or from wherever into the elevator, up to your condo, through the house, out to your porch, 32 pound bag are very heavy.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm thinking already of the potential workers comp claims when we're using employees, but couldn't you come up with this idea?
Speaker 2:You know, I was watching a baby diaper commercial and I'm going what keeps these butts dry? What is it that does it? And I did some research and the next thing you know, we're working on these storm bags.
Speaker 1:Had you experienced damage due to flooding personally in your home or at work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we have First our entire town burned down, you know Paradise, and then wildfire and the entire town actually.
Speaker 1:That was your town, maurice. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was 12,000 homes. Sadly, a lot of people died. It was a really bad thing. And then, literally the day after that, huge rain started and since there was nothing holding the water back, everything was flooding everywhere.
Speaker 2:So we used them quite a bit and when it rains here where we live, it really comes down and the ground's not ready to hold it because it's so dry and hard dirt. The ground's not ready to hold it because it's so dry and hard dirt. So around our warehouse here I also have other products that we sell Around our warehouse. We use them all the time. We just keep them on the bottom of a metal building and, again, they've molded themselves in place In the summer. They dry out. They just lay there. We just leave them there. When it rains they swell up again and protect us from these weird storms that come through and just dump a whole bunch of rain at once. They're really very handy and, yes, we use them a lot ourselves and we understand I now understand catastrophes.
Speaker 2:I know what it means to lose everything. I didn't know that before. I always saw it on TV. Wow, this happens to everybody else. But I have some bad news for everybody. It can happen to anybody at any time. That's something we learned here, and it takes a bit of a shock, you know, but it can happen to anybody anytime. And after that is when I really started. Okay, we need to push these stormbacks, More people need to know about it, because we had some customers that we always sold them to. We never really went out to sell to the public and then, when this whole shark tank happened, I realized that this is something for the public.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why I was so happy to have you on the pod, because, listen, there's always been a segment of the population that's super prepared.
Speaker 2:The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts out there.
Speaker 1:But for most of us. You're right. We don't. We live our lives. We don't think so much. And then I'm not sure we could function as humans if we were constantly thinking right disaster around every corner. I mean that's for sure we'd be amped up all the time. But I think more and more people are understanding that with the changes in in our weather patterns and what we're seeing, and in the ferocity of some of these storms, yeah I had been in northern western north carolina and every place we went was you saw the terrible devastation.
Speaker 1:Last year, every place we went was just wiped out with flooding and it was horrible. So and we've talked a lot recently, maurice, about flooding in particular I had a um, I had the p3 elevation guide where they lift the whole homes I mean that's a drastic solution, um, and it's really expensive, I mean. I think they get 300 000 for an average size. So let's talk. What a storm bag, not 300 000 to get no bags now a storm bag is.
Speaker 2:First of all, you can't really compare it to a sandbag price-wise. You know sandbags are cheap and it's mostly labor and sand that you get for free, right? A storm bag is a tool and if you look at our website, I think we've got them now at $8.99 per bag. So that's $89 for a box of 10, and that includes shipping.
Speaker 2:So it's very uh, it's affordable it's affordable and you only use it when you need it and it lasts. You know. If you don't use it for anything five, ten years, you can have it. You're covered, not worry about it. So it's a really good choice to have for your home, as compared to, uh, flood damage oh my, my gosh. You know I don't know there's lists of how every inch in a house costs, how much. You know this could really help a lot.
Speaker 2:Now, you know, when there's a huge storm front coming in and they're trying to protect the beach and there's 10,000 National Guard members trying to protect the town, you know this might not be the bag for that situation, the National Guard members trying to protect the town.
Speaker 2:You know this might not be the back for that situation, as they have the sand, they got the bulldozers, they got the people that are out there to help.
Speaker 2:But anybody that needs it for their own home, for their business, for we sell a lot to people that are in charge of maintenance for big buildings Right, hospitals, schools, hotels, sandals, resort, those kind of places, hilton's they just love it, their maintenance people are just so happy because in a hospital that has 500 rooms, every day there's some flood going on in a room, somebody plugged the toilet, somebody smoked a cigarette, something's going on and water is. And they just love these bags because they can go in and they can just throw a couple down, boom, boom the water. They can carry it out and the water goes with it and then they can work on the problem and not flood the next room I think it's a partnership, maurice, between what government can do yeah local and federal to help you prepare and recover, and what you can do for yourself exactly I mean you really just it really it's a partnership, and that's when it works best.
Speaker 1:In terms of, let's say it's a average seven story high rise and we want to we want to prepare it. We know the storm's coming, Fortunately in Florida, or unfortunately we see that construction heading towards us for about five days before the storm actually gets here? Let's assume it's accurate. How many of these bags would we need before the storm actually gets here? Let's assume it's accurate. These bags would we need?
Speaker 2:the storm bags to secure the the lower level obviously of the bill you know you always want to have each bag is about, you know, uh, two feet uh long, and then you want to build a wall. Now sand the good, the reason that I made these the same size of a standard sandbag. Some people ask me that why did you make it the exact same size? Why don't you make them bigger ones or smaller ones? Well, people that are building uh walls like this, they know how to build it with a sandbag. Why why suddenly start? Oh, why reinvent the wheel and say you got a wheel, you've got to now calculate differently because these bags are different. So it's the same size, same weight, and there's charts everywhere for those kind of things, for how much linear footage, how many bags you need, and it's exact same as with a sandbag. So you know how high you want to go, you want to be so, so far over the water, and what do you? What are you protecting there? There's a lot of standard charts out there to tell you, and it's exact same as a sandbag.
Speaker 2:And then, for people that are doing door protection, we actually have on our webpage something that's called door protection kits and it's for one door, double door, single garage door, double garage door, and what we send you there is storm bags. We send you a big plastic sheet, we send you duct tape so you can tape the duct tape on the door and let it come down to the bottom a little bit and then put the storm bags on top of that so you have full protection when there's a bad one coming. We do that a lot. Storefronts like to buy those. Uh, recently somebody in dallas uh, one of the big phone companies protected all their stores in in dallas with that, those storm back door kits imagine there's some.
Speaker 1:There should be some data as to the effectiveness of sandbags, even regular sandbags when it comes to hurricanes, Obviously it's going to protect from flooding because you've created a barrier. But how do these things stand up to a Cat 3 or 4 hurricane in terms of the wind force?
Speaker 2:Well, they're going to be the same weight as a sandbag, so you know, pretty heavy at that point. And then it depends on how deep you make your wall and charts for that. You know you have one layer, then you have another layer behind it and in certain areas, depending on how big the storm is or what they're expecting is how deep they'll make that wall. So it kind of depends on and there's charts for that kind of stuff it kind of depends on what's coming and what you need to do.
Speaker 1:And how you assembled it.
Speaker 2:And how you assembled it. It's very important. You have to always have some over the water. You have to have enough in the back to keep the pressure going.
Speaker 1:Do you give resources to tell people how to assemble this thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some on our website, of course, at stormbagco, and then there's some links on there too, and you know what? I got to check and see if I still have that chart link on there. Thanks for reminding me, because that is a good question and we always had that link on there. But since our new webpage is up, I want to make sure I have that on there too, and if not, folks, I'll have it on there ASAP.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad you mentioned the part about you know how long these things last, because knock wood here. I'm going to knock wood here. We're not going to see a hurricane again on my coast for a while or anything I would love, but if we bought this and I threw it in my garage and I didn't need it for five years and I do. Is the magic powder still going to work, maurice?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's still good. It's still good for longer than that than five years, and the only thing I do is the magic powder still going to work. Maurice, yes, it's still good. It's still good for longer than that than five years. We say five years because we want to make sure that. Now, if you had them opened and there was water that got to it or something or anything that got to it, of course it's different, but if they're in the same condition, if they've been nice and stored in a dry place, we've had some that now we've been going on this for about nine years. So that's how far back we could test and they're all good still, but we put on there five years.
Speaker 1:So I mentioned that I was a huge Shark Tank fan. Yeah, and I'm always the type I like to actually check out. I think the products are great. I recently bought the fire blanket, so I remember the fire blanket. So I remember he came on and I was like you know what? I've never had to deploy a fire extinguisher which looks messy and it's confusing and you've got to maintain it. So I said, let me get this right. Hopefully I never have to use it.
Speaker 1:I think I had it like three weeks and I had it tucked in a drawer in my kitchen. I decided to make homemade garlic rolls, pour it on the olive oil, keep it with garlic, put it in the broiler too close. All of a sudden I have seven inch to 10 inch oh, lapping out. Grab the thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's going on here? I, I remembered grabbed it, smothered it. It was, it was perfect, perfect it was, it was actually perfect.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking when I'm talking to you that I'm going to have to go order.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Well, that's awesome that that fire blanket worked for you. My neighbors just lost their whole ranch because they were making some soap and or candles or something on the stove and and the fire extinguisher didn't work. It actually pushed the flame even further away. When it hit it and burnt, started the whole house and it lost the whole house. The blanket would have worked you know I bought.
Speaker 1:I bought one from for both of my children and I put one in my electric vehicle, thinking it's a bigger one oh yeah, you know, you know, but that's where you get some of these when you get one, I one, I'm telling you.
Speaker 2:I'm getting one.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to get yours, but I got to ask because I am such a fan. What was it like? What was the Shark Tank experience? Like you got to deal with Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think Mr Wonderful asked you why people should pay for your stuff. Right, can you walk us behind the hole? Sure, people should pay for your stuff, right, can you walk us behind the?
Speaker 2:whole like how did they find?
Speaker 1:you and how did you get on?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, after the fire that happened and I was almost going to retire, I was thinking, oh man, do I really want to start up? My son joined the company. He said, dad, we'll do this together. And I quit all that he was doing and said I'm going to help you out and we're going to get this going and your storm bags are really a good item. Let's go to a trade show in Los Angeles. It was a natural disaster trade show. I said OK, drove down there, set up and I was doing a pitch on those storm bags for three days straight, 12 hours a day. At the last day, the last minute, right before we broke down the booth, I was so tired. He said, dad, do one more, I'll film it. I tire. He said dad, do one more, I'll film it. I said okay, I didn't even stand up, I was just standing there making a little goofy thing. He put that on tiktok and as we're driving home, it's about an eight hour drive from los angeles to northern california. After we're driving home, he looked at the thing and said, yeah, halfway through he said, dad, we have six million views on this. I said what? By the time it was all over, I was like 12 million views on this. I don't know what really determined that it happens, but somehow the AI world grabbed it and went with it.
Speaker 2:And so I'm at home in the office and I get a call. The guy says I'm the producer from the Shark Tank. And I said I'm sorry, we can't afford any advertising on your show. And I hung up on him any advertising on your show. And I'll not want them. And you know, because I get these calls all day long, people trying to say they're, you know, want to sell a ten thousand dollar ad for a minute. And I just hung up and phone call again and he says don't hang up. And I said why? He says I'm the producer of the shark tank. I am the producer of the shark, you know. He called and he said listen, to fill out this form. We'd like to maybe have you on the shark tank and and then from there on it was a long process. I was pretty excited.
Speaker 1:Had you watched the show before the production?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've watched it, okay, and I've always found it interesting, and sometimes it was frustrating to me because I'm like man, it'd be nice if I could get some of my items on there. I think that would work, you know, but I had no idea how to do it. Anyway, long story short, we practice, we have to do all the stuff that. You know it's a lot of paperwork you can imagine, and lawyer stuff and all this stuff. And then you get there and they flew us down there to the Sony Studios, which is kind of cool, and they had just finished Guardian of the Galaxy, the last one. We were in the same building, so there was a lot of stuff. I was thinking that maybe Brad Pitt would been calling sick and while I'm there they could use me for something, but it didn't quite happen. But you know, this was during the time when they had, when they were called striking and we had to go through the strike thing. They were throwing rotten eggs at our car as we were going into the studio.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, Because that was when they had that big strike Anyway it was a strike, a writer's strike?
Speaker 2:oh wow, because that was when they had that big strike. Anyway, the writer strike, yeah, but we get in there and they're, you know, there's a whole bunch of other people and uh starts at six in the morning. Get there the night before and and uh, then you go in and they film so many of them for a whole week or so or two weeks, like 100, and they end up showing like 50 of them. You know, um, it's not really the sharks decision, which one that gets aired. It's like nbc that makes that final decision. So you don't know if you're going to get aired until a day before. Oh wow, they keep that very secret. You know, it's all part of. I'm sure there's a reason, good reason for it now, did you?
Speaker 1:go in there with an idea of which sharks you wanted to make a deal with or you were open to anything.
Speaker 2:I kind of was aiming for Lori, because I know that she has a good television network kind of a sales thing and I thought this item was an item for that. But we were pretty open and you're a little bit nervous because you have to just pitch it's live, it's live, there's no retakes. If, for some reason, some reason, your pitch you messed it up, they just send you home and all that was for nothing, because they don't have time to reshoot or do anything.
Speaker 2:If you don't do it right, you just go home you get the hook, they go goodbye next yeah yeah, I saw it happen to somebody who took too long to do something and they went through all this stuff because it takes months of preparations and then they only have so much time. So you have to have it right. Our first plan was to have the sharks do a little bit of one guy digging some sand, the other guy doing the storm bag, and so we had planned our whole pitch around that Right literally an hour before they said oh lawyers, we don't want them to shovel sand around, maybe they hurt themselves with a heavy bag or something so, which I understand. But now suddenly, all this pitch that we practiced for six months made us hella nervous. To make sure it's right, now we got an hour to do a new one, so I was you had to pivot, oh my god so you know I'm thinking like oh my gosh, I better get this right or this is not gonna work.
Speaker 2:But but they were all very friendly, they're very nice people and we went in there and stood there and did our pitch and it was all you know you could see. Of course, they only show like part of it. Of course you can tell that they edited.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm sure it's intimidating to sit there under the hot lights. Yeah yeah, but you had all the answers you know, landed call and who questioned your your valuation? Did anyone question your value?
Speaker 2:it's always not really um matter of fact. Um, long story short. You know they shook the hand, we did, did the deal and they were very interested and and, uh, months later you know you deal with all their bookkeeping and all that stuff. Basically, the team called and said we still didn't know if we could air it right. I said, listen, if you could air it, it's Mark's team. Basically, mark, if you could air it next week, we're hoping we would get air it. You're going to do well and we're not going to be able to do anything better for you than you're doing now. If you want, you can get out of the deal, and that was very at first. I was like, is this some kind of a weird thing, or?
Speaker 2:not, and then I thought about it and I thought it was very nice of them to do that, Because, you know, basically they couldn't figure out anything that they could do better than we were doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Except put some money into it, which that wasn't really the main issue. The main issue is that I had to get this word out, that there's a new product that nobody knows what better than an Puritan Shark Tank vet? They realized that too, and they were being nice and I was very happy about that.
Speaker 1:And so did you take them up with that offer you said okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm out, wow well they have that disclaimer that just because on the show they show, you know that you're getting an offer from this shark, or that's right sharks that that doesn't necessarily mean that the deals go forward.
Speaker 2:I assume there's a whole due diligence period it's huge due diligence period and they do a lot. And you know, stormbag is not a company by itself. It's part of my company, swiss Link, and that's one of our brands that we do. We do other stuff, so we would have had to separate the company altogether out of Swiss Link. So a little complicated paperwork with two different companies you know Lori's and Mark, so those that would have been a lot of work. But basically they gave me an out which was fantastic because it aired, and that night it aired we sold 50 000 storm eggs. So you know it was fantastic.
Speaker 1:we didn't have a share yeah, I did that all the time. Even the people will walk away without deals. I think well, they've at least gotten the exposure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Huge audience. So wait, how's business then? I assume you started StormBag when. How's it doing?
Speaker 2:How's it trending? Oh gosh, you know, I started StormBag nine years ago or 10 years ago and I've always had, like I said, these few customers that always bought some, of course then. And now we hit the public with it. So let's say we sold, you know, at the time, 300 stormbacks a month or something. Uh, suddenly, you know, we sold 50 000 that night, which we didn't have. So we had to make more and people were very patient and it all worked out great. And then they repeated the show and that night we sold another 20 000 when the show got repeated.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, but because of that, we've gained a lot of wholesale, more wholesale customers. So it's been doing really good. Recently we have a big slowdown because everybody has gotten the goods now. So everybody stopped, or at least the ones that saw our show or that know about us have storm bags now. So now we're just waiting for reorders storm bags now. So now we're just waiting for reorders and, hopefully, new orders with people you know that listen to your podcast and other things, because I think people need to know more about it to be able to even want to buy it you even know that this is a possible solution yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, let me ask you are you getting any orders and you?
Speaker 1:do work. You've gotten endorsements from fema and the department of homeland security. Are you getting, are you doing, any orders in? You do work.
Speaker 2:You've gotten endorsements from FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 1:Are you doing any work with local or federal government?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do. We have just, for example, the city of Dallas always buys from us all the time. They love them. We have a military base, a couple of military bases, in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor. They buy them all the time. In Hawaii, pearl Harbor, they buy them all the time Different cities and governments and the endorsement from FEMA is that they're on their approved list of items they can buy. But their individual offices still need to know that this item exists before they would even request it. So it all sounds a little bit easier than it is, but yet the word needs to get out. It's the most important and the people that buy it always rebuy it. They're always very happy and they buy it again. So every customer that we gain is a lifetime customer.
Speaker 1:Are you doing any work overseas? There's a lot of places on the globe for quality.
Speaker 2:Maurice, yes, we have a distributor in Germany, we have one in France, philippines, we have a distributor in England and Belgium, spain and somebody was just talking to me for the Scandinavian, so hopefully they'll all send me big orders.
Speaker 1:Listen, I have not heard of any associations that are using storm bag or anything like that in terms of flood preparation or storm preparation. I think that's about to change awesome uh, you know, look to the extent that there's things that associations can and should be doing as well as individual owners, to mitigate any damage. This can only be a positive. Any final thoughts for people on, you know, preparation overall well.
Speaker 2:In general, it's hard to sell somebody insurance when they don't need it. At this moment, and I've always been like that too. Too, I've tried to minimize stuff that I need to prepare for, and I have to say that after that fire, I am suddenly way different about it. I have some food that I have to take with me. I have a go bag that's really well prepped. I have some things that you know, because I know what it suddenly means to be on the street and everything you ever had is gone and hoping that somebody will help you and don't be in that situation.
Speaker 2:Help yourself as much as you can, and I've had a lady from Brooklyn, new York, the other day call me. She was 87 years old, living in a place that always gets water coming in from underneath, and she said I can never find people to carry these heavy sandbags down to my basement. You know I now have a box of your bags. I already used it, thank you, and I'm trying to get across that. Yes, an insurance that nobody needs and things you don't need. You get that offered all day long, and it's hard to separate people that mean well and something you might really need and not to buy too much of it, just enough to help with your needs. We're always here on the phone to help them with that. We'll never take advantage of anybody, and we hope to be able to help as much as we can.
Speaker 1:I know you said it before, but where can people find you, Maurice?
Speaker 2:They can find us at stormbagco, so that's wwwstormbagco.
Speaker 1:Well, I really want to thank you for your time and expertise. I am going to be a customer. I will tell you though when I bought the fire blanket, I had a fire right after.
Speaker 2:So I don't know If I buy the storm bag and I have a flood three weeks later.
Speaker 1:I'll let you know.
Speaker 2:That's like washing your car You'll be sure it's going to rain. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for having us on Claude. I appreciate it very much. I appreciate it very much, and what you do for your listeners is a great thing.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to follow and rate us on your favorite podcast platform, or visit TakeItToTheBoardcom for more ways to connect.