11/ 21/ 2005
by Susan Christens
As Hurricane Katrina gained strength off the Gulf Coast on Aug. 28, Philip Shirley gathered senior members of his team from the Godwin Group at his Jackson, Miss., headquarters. Within 24 hours the massive storm would slam ashore. News reports predicted devastation not seen in coastal Mississippi in more than 30 years, and Godwin Group’s Biloxi, Miss., office stood directly in the storm's path.
We’re used to handling crisis communications for our clients, and we’re pretty quick at it,” says Shirley, whose advertising and public relations firm has helped companies deal with union strikes, lawsuits and oil spills. During the brief meeting in Jackson, the team determined what needed to be done in the hours left before the storm: back up important files and get them out of the coastal office, and establish a phone tree and distribute it among employees.
Shirley knew when the clouds cleared his team needed to be on top of their game. With clients like the Mississippi Power Company and Hancock Bank (the largest coastal bank in the region), the Godwin Group would be needed to field media inquiries, write radio and television spots and form strategic communications plans.
Having a disaster plan in place is just one of the lessons the worst natural disaster in U.S. history taught small business. Stories from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama describe unimaginable circumstances in the days and weeks following the storm--homes, businesses and lives changed forever. And though most U.S. small businesses will never face a Katrina-like storm, other disasters such as fires, floods or tornadoes can decimate your business just as quickly. Are you ready?
1. Form a Disaster Plan
As Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast states in the early morning of Aug. 29, 2005, Shirley and the 80 employees of his advertising agency that specializes in crisis management were tested on all the advice they had given clients for more than 68 years. By the morning of Aug. 30, they regrouped and went to work. In the storm’s aftermath, the Godwin Group’s detailed action plan helped the company provide unwavering support to clients across south Mississippi.
“The key to our success was redundancy,” says Shirley, president and chief operating officer of the agency. “We had to assume people wouldn’t be able to use traditional means of communicating. E-mail wouldn’t work, because people didn’t have power. Cell phones might not work,because certain towers were down. Some landlines didn’t work.”
In the days before the storm, Godwin Group’s 80 employees submitted all their contact info for a central phone tree, which was then distributed to everyone. “Updating the phone tree was the most important thing we did,” Shirley says. “We asked for numbers everywhere anyone could be reached--your cell phone, your child’s cell phone, your parents’ house. And then we made sure everyone had every number.”
After the storm, Shirley established two hotlines and updated them every day with information for employees, such as office closings, company-wide announcements and daily manager contacts. Anticipating Biloxi employees would be unable to work in the days after the storm, Shirley made sure the Jackson office took up the work flow. “We told employees on the coast: ‘We’ll take care of your clients; you take care of yourselves and your family.’”
To put info at everyone’s fingertips, computer files were meticulously backed up, even in the midst of the evacuation. “As they were shutting down the Biloxi office, someone downloaded current work on an iPod,” Shirley says. A few days later, Godwin’s production manager in Jackson met the quick-thinking iPod owner on the interstate halfway to Biloxi to get the files. “That was the kind of creativity our employees displayed.”
Because communication was difficult, Shirley allowed employees to make decisions on the fly. “There wasn’t time for people to stop and call the boss,” says Shirley, who had no problem with a group of employees who independently purchased a satellite phone in the days after Katrina. “We let people know in advance that we were going to depend on them to make good decisions.”
Godwin’s Biloxi office was only slightly damaged, so staff who felt ready to return to work resumed limited duties within a few days of the storm. Ten people (including employees and their families) slept at the office for two weeks because they couldn’t go back to their homes. “We brought mattresses in and sent a van full of supplies from Jackson on four different occasions,” he says.
Shirley and his employees worked 10-hour days right after the storm. Although everyone was stressed and tired, the team got back on its feet quickly and efficiently because of the planning they did before Katrina struck. “The main thing the hurricane reinforced is what we already knew: It all starts with good communication.”
2. Take Care of Employees
Two of its stores were heavily damaged and its Jackson, Miss., headquarters was without power, but the owners of Cowboy Maloney’s Electric City didn’t use that as an excuse to miss payroll. Despite the chaos around them, they cranked up a generator and made sure that the more than 200 employees of the 12-store chain got their paychecks on time. Some employees even got paid from store cash registers when a delivery service failed to reach those in hard-hit Laurel and Biloxi. Employees continued to receive their salaries even though the Hattiesburg, Miss., store was closed for three weeks, and the Biloxi store for a month.
“The main thing you worry about in one of these deals is your associates,” says company president Eddie Maloney. “We didn’t have anybody hurt, and we feel good about that. You’ve got to make sure you take care of people.”
For Marcy McCall, owner of the New Orleans deli, The Grocery, such caretaking meant coming to the rescue of her star employee Edmond Cannon. After evacuating to her parent’s home in Fulton, Mo., McCall spent six days worrying about Cannon, who had opted to ride out the storm in the Big Easy. “I would cry at night and watch TV and search the crowd for Edmond. I really thought he was dead.”
Finally, Cannon called, and McCall was relieved to hear he and his family had taken refuge in her Garden District restaurant. When she learned his house had flooded, she arranged for her family in Missouri to take in Edmond and his 16-year-old son. “My family housed him, helped him find a job and got his son enrolled in school,” she says. “When we can go back to New Orleans and rebuild, we will. Until then, we will take care of each other. My insurance will allow me to pay myself, my husband and Edmond." McCall understood that without her star employee, her business would suffer more when she finally did reopen.
McCall says she’s especially thankful that she had the foresight to buy business-interruption insurance one month before Katrina hit. “As a small-business owner, you always feel crunched for cash,” she says. “But when it comes to protecting your business, it’s like protecting yourself. You have to make it happen. If I did not have that coverage, I would be a wreck.”
3. Anticipate Customer Needs
Horne LLP has six accounting offices along the coastlines of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. So its insurance agency stepped in to help even before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. “Before the storm, we had claims numbers for all our offices and they were advising us on things we had to do,” says Horne marketing director Shawn McGregor.
That quick anticipation of customer needs is a skill Horne adopted as well. “We’re trying to be innovative for our clients,” McGregor says. In the aftermath of Katrina, the firm began a new service—helping clients file complicated business-interruption claims. Horne also reached out to competitors, offering office space and utilities to a displaced New Orleans firm. “We’ve found it’s very helpful to have alliances with other companies,” McGregor says. “And it’s the right thing to do.”
McGregor says the company also was mindful of the need to stay in touch with clients—even if it took a little creativity. While power and phone lines were down, he plugged a laptop into a power inverter in his 2001 Chevrolet Venture van and kept the company’s Web site updated.
4. Collaborate With other Businesses
Hurricane Katrina left Transcript Pharmacy with no power—and no outs. The Jackson, Miss., company had no choice but to find a way to sustain service to its customers: Most are transplant patients who face organ rejection—and even death—if they go a day without their medications.
To continue processing prescriptions, principal owner Clifton Osbon used a generator to keep computers humming. But with delivery services suspended in many storm-ravaged areas, Osbon had to think fast to meet customers’ needs. His unlikely solution: Partner with competitors.
To get medicines to the Gulf Coast, he joined with another pharmacy to deliver goods to areas that had lost mail service. “We met people at the Wal-Mart parking lot at noon and the Chick-Fil-A at 3 p.m.,” he says.
That spirit of cooperation flourished in Katrina’s aftermath, and Osbon says many organizations volunteered aid without being asked. “Armada Health Care, our purchasing group, drove us 165 gallons of gas from New Jersey. And Novartis Pharmaceuticals called from Dallas and said: ‘I know you need gas; what else do you need?’”
5. Focus on Your Recovery
As a makeup and wardrobe consultant, Adrienne Moncrief is a whiz at putting a pretty face on things. But even her extreme makeover skills were strained by the likes of Katrina. The storm demolished Moncrief’s home in Bay St. Louis, Miss., leaving the entrepreneur without a mailing list, catalog, Web site or product line.
But instead of dwelling on what she lost, Moncrief began studying her options like she might study the bare face of a client. Soon she saw all kinds of possibilities.
“Transformation is what I’m all about,” she says. “Now people get to see if I practice what I preach.” Moncrief had already evacuated to Jackson, Miss., so she decided to stay put in her former hometown. Contacts there helped her buy a house, revise her mailing list and spread the word that she was back in business. “You need to let customers know right away you’re not going away,” she says.
Her first challenge post-Katrina was a pre-arranged photo shoot involving 13 female lawyers. Moncrief had no supplies, so the women brought their own makeup, and she supervised. “I made them look 10 times better, and she supervised. “I made them look 10 times better, and it was this wonderful illustration that it isn’t about what I’m using, it’s about my gift. I can do what I do anywhere with anything.”
