Hurricane Katrina Leaves Region In Need

Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, chaos still rules the region. Communication is spotty, at best. Evacuees are scattered across the country. And many people have lost — or have family members, friends or employees who lost — everything.

SM editors placed dozens of calls to jan/san businesses in the region, but were unable to get through to many areas most affected by the devastation. In fact, all numbers with a 504 area code were inaccessible, according to reports. But SM did track down a few jan/san businesses on the periphery of the destruction, and got their accounts.

Jules Hebert, owner of Vermilion Janitorial & Industrial Supply Inc., Abbeville, La., said his business is feeling the sting. His facility, which lies about two and a half hours west of New Orleans in the Acadiana region, was not damaged, nor were most structures in the surrounding area; however, friends and family of employees have experienced losses.

While Hebert’s facility itself is intact, business has yet to return to normal more than 10 days after the hurricane struck. “Right now we are just trying to survive by getting supplies in day-to-day,” said Hebert. “A lot of our suppliers are in New Orleans, like Diamond Paper, Lagasse, and Snee Chemical.”

At press time, Hebert was receiving supplies from suppliers in Houston.

The manufacturing base in and immediately around New Orleans is slowly getting back on its feet. Mitchell Mark, president of Snee Chemical Co., a wholesaler and chemical manufacturer headquartered in Harahan, La., 10 miles west of New Orleans, was still in the process of tracking down his employees a week and a half after the hurricane.

His employees were scattered across the country and three remained missing, including one who had said he was staying in his home to ride out the storm. Mark himself was living in a travel trailer two hours from New Orleans, and had set up a temporary office while he attempted to locate employees, friends and family.

Communication was the biggest roadblock Mark faced, he said. After the storm, text messaging and e-mail were the most reliable means of communication — getting a phone line out was difficult and many phone numbers weren’t working.

Steve Schultz from LagasseSweet, on the other hand, said communications from employees and their families continued to pour in. He sent out a release informing vendors that many employees that work out of the New Orleans facility had reported total loss of their property and belongings. Efforts were already underway to regroup and begin rebuilding.

The company will continue to pay out salary and benefits packages for employees in New Orleans, and in the meantime will build or retain temporary facilities throughout the country and increase call center support while it replaces IT systems in New Orleans.

Some companies will be up and running as soon as possible because the cleaning and disinfecting supplies they sell or produce will be vital to cleanup efforts. At press time, Mark said he was hoping to be back in the Harahan facility on Monday, September 12.

The Snee Chemical facility suffered some wind damage, but renewed operations should be possible with the help of a huge generator that Mark bought the Monday before Hurricane Katrina hit.

Snee Chemical has a backup of trucks that didn’t go out, and Mark has been inundated with requests for supplies.

“The biggest demand we have is to get back and start filling orders,” he said.

Mark said the most important thing he has learned from this experience is to have an emergency response plan.

“We’re going to improve on ours, because this just didn’t work.”

Several industry companies and associations are lending a hand in getting the Gulf Shore regions cleaned up. Here is a sampling of some of the efforts underway that SM received as of press time:

• The ISSA Foundation is asking all members and others in the industry to donate to the ISSA Foundation AmeriCares Fund, a non-profit disaster-relief and humanitarian-aid organization. It is also working with Gifts In Kind International, the third largest charity in the world, to collect donations.

ISSA Chairman W. Grant Watkinson said, “Our plea to the members of ISSA has resulted in an outpouring of contributions that speaks highly of the cleaning industry and its generosity in times of need.”

• Southern California Sanitary Supply Association (SCSSA) President James Ammons said its board of directors decided, because of the logistics involved in providing products, to make a monetary contribution to the Red Cross.

• The International Executive Housekeepers Association (IEHA) has asked all members to to donate to the organization’s General Relief Fund, which aids members affected by any type of natural disaster.

• The New Jersey Sanitary Supply Association (NJSSA) collected relief products to be sent to Gifts In Kind International.

• Reckitt Benckiser Inc., Parsippany, N.J., will provide the Red Cross with funds, Lysol® Disinfectant products, Clean & Smooth® Antibacterial Soap and educational resources for victims and cleanup crews on proper cleaning and disinfecting.

• JohnsonDiversey Inc., Racine, Wis., will donate $100,000 and has established a matching fund for employee donations totalling up to $20,000.It will also donate more than 2,500 cases of professional products such as hand cleaners, deodorizers and sanitizers.

• Industrial Soap Co., St. Louis, donated approximately $50,000 worth of brooms, mops, buckets and sanitizer to Catholic Charities to aid in the cleanup.

NEWS MAKERS

Web-Based Sales Take Off For Grainger
Grainger Inc., Chicago, expects its Web sales to reach $750 million this year. The company is celebrating its 10th anniversary online and reports that customers have made 10 million purchases estimated at about $2 billion.

New Standards May Mean Cleaner Facilities
The American and Canadian standards for gas equipment in commercial kitchens has been updated to allow for “commercial grade” moveable gas connectors. The flexible gas connectors will enhance safety and hygiene in commercial food service environments because it will be easier to move equipment.

Maine Barring Hazardous Chemicals In Schools
The state of Maine recently took action toward removing hazardous chemicals from schools. Maine’s governor signed a bill that directs schools to remove dangerous chemicals and to pay for their removal. Schools are required to submit a hazardous chemical inventory to the Department of Education annually. Distributors doing business with schools in Maine are being encouraged by the state to discuss removal obligations with their customers.

EPA Can No Longer Require MEK Reports
A federal appeals court recently ruled in favor of the American Chemistry Council, which had petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to remove the chemical methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) from its annual Toxic Release Inventory List.
This means that the government can no longer require chemical makers to report how much MEK is released into the environment each year.

Erratic Gas Prices Affect East Coast
T he entire nation has felt the impact of the high price of gasoline all summer. Normally Labor Day signals an end to high gas prices, but this year, Hurricane Katrina further tightened the pinch at the pump. After the hurricane, gas prices on the East Coast spiked to previously unheard of levels before making a slow decline.

Martin Manescu, president of Baltimore-based Ram Supply Co., Inc., said prices along the East Coast were driven to record levels after two gas pipelines from the Gulf of Mexico were damaged, preventing suppliers from fully providing the region with gasoline until about a week and a half after Hurricane Katrina.

In Baltimore, the price per gallon of gas ranged between $3 and $4, Manescu said. That increase has had a huge impact on business. “As a distributor, we’re getting it on both ends,” he says. “We’re getting it from manufacturers increasing prices to us, not to mention fuel surcharges that we’re receiving on that end, and in addition, our costs have gone up.”
In Atlanta, there were gas supply scares due to spot shortages; it was not uncommon for gas prices to increase by $2 or $3 at a moment’s notice.

To deal with the extra cost to company, Manescu said he had to apply nominal fuel surcharges to customers’ orders, a move others in the area have made, but which Ram Supply had tried hard to avoid.
“We do everything possible within our control to keep our costs down for our clients,” Manescu said. “As a result of the outrageous increases, we are left with absolutely no alternative.”

The price per gallon of gas was beginning to level off and drop a week and a half after Hurricane Katrina, but Manescu says there needs to be long-term planning put in place. I think it should be a requirement — if industry doesn’t do something on its own, the federal government should maybe step in to build another refinery.”