Financial Times
Sept. 5, 2005 [Day 8]
From Wal-Mart's satellite-based communications systems to FedEx's aircraft, US business has in some cases managed to provide a swifter response to the initial impact of hurricane Katrina than the federal and state authorities.
But critics of the handling of the crisis by government agencies said they were slow in accepting offers of help.
Mary Landrieu, the Democratic US senator from Louisiana, accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency of having "dragging its feet" when Amtrak offered trains to evacuate victims.
"Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency," she said.
Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, with over 100 stores and distribution centres in the affected areas, sent in trucks carrying water, food and other emergency items in response to calls from local relief groups in the first days after the hurricane hit.
The retailer had sent around 1,200 trucks to replenish stores and supply relief in the area last week -- co-ordinating its efforts via an emergency response centre in Bentonville that used the company's GPS satellite system to track its truck movements.
Wal-Mart pledged an additional $15m in cash on Thursday -- on top of $2m pledged earlier in the week -- after President George W. Bush announced that former presidents Clinton and Bush senior would be involved in co-ordinating the relief effort.
It has also established "mini-Wal-Mart" stores in trucks, tents and other structures in areas affected by the hurricane, where it will give out free food, bottled water, clothing, baby milk formula, toothbrushes and bedding.
Wal-Mart also established an on-line missing persons message system, getting more than 2,000 messages and more than 200,000 visits in its first two days.
Albertson's, the supermarket chain, which has 17 stores in Louisiana, says it has also pledged to ship in $9m in emergency food, water and other items from its warehouses in Texas and Florida to Red Cross distribution centres.
"The Red Cross is stipulating the preferred supplies to take care of critical needs, and telling us the preferred destinations," said an Albertson's spokesman.
On Saturday, FEMA chartered three luxury liners from Carnival Cruise Lines to provide temporary accommodation for victims. The ships, Ecstasy, Sensation and Holiday, have a capacity of more than 7,000.
At the emergency shelter set up at the Houston Astrodome, Kroger, a large supermarket chain with stores in the affected regions, was asked by the Red Cross last week week to provided 30,000 bar-coded swipe cards. The cards were then issued to evacuees as part of efforts by the Red Cross to keep track of people.
FedEx said it began airfreighting 120,000 lbs of water and telecoms equipment on behalf of the Red Cross before the hurricane hit. On Friday it also moved camp beds by aircraft to Houston and to Baton Rouge.
In contrast to the Asian tsunamis, when multinationals mostly gave cash, the proximity of New Orleans has encouraged companies as varied as General Electric, Procter & Gamble, DHL and Dow Chemical to offer logistics support and product donations too.
Such efforts pale by comparison with the immense challenges faced by local utility companies. BellSouth, the third largest US telecommunications group and the largest provider of local telephone lines in nine US southeastern states, has restored service to just 150,000 local-telephone lines out of a total of about 1.75m affected by the storm.
As originally published
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