Have a designated storm crew in advance of any storm. The news media starts hyping these storms up when they are a thousand miles offshore and people begin to panic early. Some our employees have boats in the water, some have horses that need to be moved and some have elderly parents that need assistance. Priorities change for these employees and they take off two and three days before the evacuation orders are given. You must have a dependable crew to board up windows and relocate inventory in advance of a storm.
Have a post-storm plan. After these things blow through it is imperative to resume normal operations as soon as possible, especially if you have a body shop. There will often be no power, no data, and no phones in addition to the physical damage to the facility. If youve moved your inventory, enough people need to show up to move it back. Have a quick contact list of computer support people, electrical contractors, cleaning companies, etc. Better yet, schedule them in advance and beat the rush.
This post was hastily typed but I think these are some of the more important points that fixed ops people need to know. If your store is like ours, most of the preparation and post-storm activities fall upon fixed operations personnel and management.
This building used to house our new car prep area, car wash and heavy line area. It was without power for a week and now has a new source of light.
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All totalled, the damage done by the two storms to facility and inventory should top $500,000. We lost part of the roof on four of our five building and flooded two of the five. No flood insurance is available to us so we get to eat the new carpet, tile and clean up costs.
Add to this the lost business and you really get weak in the knees. As these stroms approach, everybody stays in front of the TV and you do zero business even though you are open. Then you end up being down for three days because of the storm and no power. So I'm sitting here in the middle of the month and my numbers are about where they would be three or four days into the month.
Techs and staff who had no work used their vacation time to make a check. I expect absentee compensation this month to compound the lack of revenue.
If the fixed operation loses less than $50,000 this month, I'll feel lucky. Even with this, it could have been a lot worse. There are stores in this state and now in Alabama that took it a lot worse. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
[This message has been edited by Jim Lloyd (edited 09-30-2004).]