Katrina's Lesson: Disaster Planning is Critical
by Greg Valero, g.valero@elsevier.com

Our cover story ("Down But Not Out") reports on how the surface finishing industry is coping with the aftermath of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. While the Southeast is not considered a hot bed for metal finishing—it represents less than 10 percent of industry sales—there is no question that a number of job and captive shops felt the wrath of these deadly storms.

Just how many surface finishers were affected by the storms is difficult to ascertain, as efforts to reach local industry members were largely unsuccessful at press time. That's primarily because Katrina destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in its path, decimating the infrastructure of cities and towns and making several areas uninhabitable. Tens of thousands of residents from severely impacted areas—such as New Orleans—were evacuated and only recently have been allowed re-entry.

If there was a lesson to be learned from Katrina and Rita as it relates to business, perhaps it is the importance of proprietors to take the necessary measures to protect their workplaces and employees from such natural disasters. In a seminal work on crisis planning and management by Ian Mitroff published last January, Mitroff contends businesses, "that plan for and manage major crises such as natural disasters have a competitive advantage over those that do not. They are able more quickly to replace damaged stocks, find alternative supply sources and transportation routes, and resume profitable trading."

J. Kelly Mowry, president of Gull Industries in Houston, recalls being in Providence, R.I. for a meeting a few days before Rita hit the Texas coastline. "I returned to Houston immediately, and prepared for the worst."

"It's critical for a business, especially a small business, to establish a clear communications structure and emergency-plan infrastructure," Mowry says."You won't have time during a crisis to figure out who’s doing what."

Which makes it imperative for metal finishers to devise an emergency preparedness program well in advance. "Before the hurricane season starts, you need to make sure all your insurance, including federal flood insurance and business-interruption insurance, is in place," Mowry advises. "It's all about planning—but a little bit of luck doesn't hurt, either."

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families who lost loved ones, lost their home, lost their job or business, but haven’t lost hope. Several suppliers and metal finishers have banded together to offer support for industry members impacted by the storms. If you can help, please contact the Surface Finishing Industry Council (SFIC), which is collecting donations in the form of equipment, personnel, material, money, etc. to assist fellow metal finishers in the Gulf Coast who are in need. You can email a list of items you can provide to dbarrack@sfic.org or call SFIC at (703) 433-0369.