Businesses make preparations for the worst-case scenario.
CONSUMERS: Grocers, hospitals, airlines and insurance companies set plans in motion to smooth the ordeal
BUSINESSES spent Thursday preparing for Hurricane Harvey as the storm strengthened and the weather forecast became increasingly gloomy.
Grocers struggled to keep store shelves stocked as customers snapped up water, emergency supplies and nonperishable food items. Hospitals discharged some patients early, and airlines waived fees for travelers wanting to change their flights.
Meanwhile, some industries were already looking ahead to the storm’s aftermath, readying crews to respond to power outages and staging insurance adjusters in the Austin and Dallas areas to come in afterward and assess the damage.
“We’re preparing for
the worst and hoping for the best,” said Elizabeth Rosenbaum, assistant director of the Sugar Land Regional Airport, where workers filled fuel tanks and tied down construction equipment.
At Kroger, shipments of water were constantly coming in.
“Literally some stores have gone through three truckloads in the last 24 hours,” spokeswoman Joy Partain said Thursday.
Shipments of bread were also important, said Scott McClelland, president of H-E-B Food and Drug. It doesn’t weigh a lot, and trucks under certain weights can become vulnerable to high winds and must get off the roads.
Less appealing was frozen foods.
“No one’s buying frozen food today at all,” McClelland said. “We’ve basically canceled our frozen food delivery.”
Home Depot focused on stores in the “potential strike zone” to bulk up the supply of essential items, such as plywood, flashlights, ice chests, bottled water and batterypowered radios.
The home-improvement chain is also bringing in additional supplies for once the storm passes: tarps, roofing materials, cleaning supplies, generators, chain saws and more water. Home Depot has a specialized stocking distribution center in Baytown that carries supplies specifically for events like storms and hurricanes.
Kroger trucks filled with baby wipes, candles, sodas, bread and nonperishable snacks made their way to stores across the area. The chain’s gasoline stations were receiving ample supplies as Kroger prepurchased “significant amounts of gas for the storm season.”
The local medical community, caught by surprise and devastated 16 years ago by Tropical Storm Allison, was taking no chances as Harvey churned closer to the Texas coast.
Three UT Physicians walk-in clinics — UT Physicians Bayshore Family Practice, UT Physicians Bellaire and UT Physicians Cinco Ranch — will be closed Saturday morning as a precaution “for the safety of patients and the staff,” said Andrew Casas, chief operating officer for the network of clinics. Other locations are expected to be open, he said.
At Memorial Hermann Health System, patients stable enough for early discharge were being released Thursday to keep the number of patients down in advance of the storm, said Tom Flanagan, vice president of trauma and disaster preparedness for the hospital network.
Texas Children’s Hospital was also assessing patient conditions for possible early discharge.
Flanagan said every location is being stocked with enough food, water, medical supplies and linens for 96 hours in case roads become impassable.
There were no plans as of Thursday to cancel elective surgeries or other procedures scheduled for early next week, the region’s hospital officials said. But that could change quickly.
Preparations at the Houston Airport System, which operates Bush In- tercontinental and Hobby airports, included checking drain systems to make sure they’re clear of debris, spokesman Bill Begley said. There were no immediate plans to shut down the airports.
The Airport System is also storing equipment and anything that could be affected by weather. Information about flooding along roads leading to airports will be available on fly2houston.com and social media.
United Airlines had a travel waiver in place for its hub at Bush Intercontinental as well as airports in Austin, Brownsville, College Station, Corpus Christi, Harlingen, McAllen and San Antonio. Travelers flying Friday through Sunday can change their travel plans at no additional cost.
Southwest Airlines likewise issued a travel advisory for Thursday through Monday at Hobby and airports in Austin, Corpus Christi, Harlingen and San Antonio.
Other organizations focused on the storm’s aftermath.
State Farm said it is bringing hundreds of insurance adjusters from around the country to Irving and Austin. They’ll head to the coast after the storm.
“We’ll be just a few hours away once it’s safe to enter the area,” spokesman Chris Pilcic said.
The company also is staging semi-trailers with air conditioning and office space in Irving and Austin. These are used to help customers with claims and provide a working area for insurance adjusters.
Allstate and Farmers Insurance also said they were bringing additional claims resources to Texas.
Houston-area electric utility companies were bracing for potential power outages. CenterPoint Energy, which serves Houston, and Entergy, which serves areas north and west of Houston, have crews ready to respond to power outages in the area.
The local office of commercial real estate firm JLL manages about 20 office and industrial buildings in the Houston area, including two in the Texas Medical Center considered “mission critical.” That means in the event the buildings lose power, they will have priority in receiving fuel to power their generators.
“We sign contracts that puts us first in line for any diesel we need to back up the generators,” said Peyton Collins, managing director of property management.
Collins stressed the importance of communicating with tenants if and when buildings must be shut down.
Jacques Legrand, JLL’s senior chief engineer based in New Orleans, experienced Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and was responsible for bringing buildings back online after the storm.
“You’re not much worried about the actual event but that you have the ability to recover from that event,” Legrand said.
That includes the need to have electricians, roofers and other building maintenance vendors at the ready for when the hurricane has passed.