Pioneer Coach Rolls Into Louisiana To Help With Hurricane Laura Relief

Pioneer Coach president and founder Doug Rountree never imagined that he’d see his company’s entire fleet return to its Nashville headquarters in a matter of a days when the coronavirus pandemic first put the live industry on hold in March – or that six months later most of his tour buses would roll back on the road that quickly to help with hurricane relief in Louisiana. 

After Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana Aug. 27, Rountree was contacted by a company outsourcing work for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and by Aug. 29 Pioneer sent out its first buses and crew members to assist recovery efforts. Initially, 15 buses were requested, then 20, 35 and eventually 40, all within a 24-hour period. 

“We had to react pretty darn quickly. So I was really proud of our team that we were able to get our fleet back out within a couple of days,” Rountree told Pollstar.  

While a typical summer would see Pioneer’s fleet criss-crossing the country, providing luxury accommodations for rock stars, most of the company’s buses are being used to provide housing for linemen and tree cutters who are working to rebuild the state’s power grid infrastructure.

The Category 4 hurricane, which was the strongest hurricane to hit Louisiana since the 1800s, wreaked havoc on the state’s power lines, affecting nearly 360,000 customers, according to CNN. The tragedy has caused 26 deaths in the state, as of Sept. 9, according to The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocate, with nine fatalities due to carbon monoxide poisoning from using generators.  

The hurricane relief is “making slow and steady progress,” Rountree says. “Power is coming back on in some places; there’s a lot of tree work to be done though. We’ll stay there as long as they want us to stay, whatever it takes until they get things done.”  

Rountree says that although it’s been a blessing for his crew to have work again, he is quick to emphasize that they “certainly don’t wish to gain work from a crisis.” He adds, “We’re already in one crisis with a pandemic and then to now double down and see a hurricane hit our country is just terrible. But we were grateful that we got to participate. … [Louisiana] needs to get their grid system built back and those folks need places to sleep with air conditioning.

“We would have normally never been able to participate in the Louisiana effort. We would have wanted to, but we wouldn’t have had the equipment supply.” 

If not for COVID, Pioneer’s buses would have been on the road with tours including KISS, Dave Matthews Band, The Avett Brothers, Old Dominion and Chris Young. 

“In the roughly 20 years we’ve been around we’d never had to furlough anybody, ever,” Rountree says. “In fact, we’ve seen nothing but growth every single year. We were on track for the biggest year we’ve ever had.”

Since Rountree founded Pioneer Coach in 2002 with four buses, the company has grown to 55 or so buses. He says, “We’ve grown steadily every year. We started with three or four employees, now we’re at 100-plus employees. We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of repeat clients every year. We’ve had plenty of artists that we took from a van to four or five busses. …. And it’s great to watch those careers grow. I love it. I’m looking forward to jumping back into that game in ‘21.”

He adds, “I know that people certainly want to return to live events because you can try to do virtual stuff as much as possible, but you can’t replace being in the same room as the artist, watching them play. We all have certain concerts – at least I do – that have left a mark. There’s always been a desire for that. And I think we’ll come back extremely strong.”