By David W. Brown
A
fter Hurricane Ida devastated south Louisiana, you might have noticed that the first store to open in your local area was Rouses. Since its founding in 1960, Rouses Markets has made disaster recovery a top priority for stores. This kind of real-time response is no easy task, but it’s built right into the Rouses Markets company DNA.
“We’ve always been the last store to close and the first store to open for communities after storms and disasters,” says Donny Rouse, the company’s third-generation CEO. “We make it a point to have at least one store open in every community after storms. We’ve always given away truckloads of water and ice at locations right after the storm. And if we don’t have enough employees to open a store all the way up, we’ll have it open as a drive-through for our customers to get small items. We will do what it takes to serve our communities.” Hurricane Ida proved an especially hard one for the Rouses team. The storm passed through the Greater New Orleans area, one of the company’s major markets, and then entered the bayou areas. Houma, where the company is headquartered, was also hit, making the track a “worst-case scenario.” Local stores, the corporate office, and distribution centers were affected, but in the end, with a lot of preparation work, the stores were able to open quickly and safely. THE DAYS PRIOR Everyone who has lived through a major hurricane knows that hurricane recovery begins a few days before the storm hits. That’s why Rouses begins preparing to reopen long before landfall, says Charles Merrell, the vice president of corporate development at Rouses Markets. “That is when we start looking at properties. We do walkarounds. We look at drains. We look at air conditioners on the roof. We look at anything that’s not tied down. We get stores buttoned up and tightened down against wind and water.” Most new Rouses locations have hurricane-proof windows and doors,
but older stores must still be boarded up with shutters and wood. His team also looks at generators, which are essential for protecting food when community power grids fail. Most Rouses locations are protected either through a permanent generator or big, moveable semi-trailer generators. The company also manages a fleet of generators capable of performing whole-store refrigeration. “There’s a whole maintenance wing that just focuses on generators,” says Merrell. The company sends the teams out to check oil and belts and transfer switches, and to deliver generators where necessary. “You would think it would be fairly simple, but it ends up being highly complex,” he says. Many generators have fuel tanks designed to run anywhere from 12 to 48 hours, burning 30 to 35 gallons of diesel fuel per hour. Therefore, a big part of disaster response is logistics, setting up fuel deliveries to keep the diesel coming once power is lost. After Hurricane Ida, 44 stores in stormaffected areas lost power, and generators at 40 locations managed to start successfully. It’s a big, challenging job, but Rouses also makes sure its team members are protected at home. “I always impress on my team that if you need to button your house up, be sure to do that. We try to get as far ahead a storm prep as we can so that on the last day, everyone has a day to take care of their homes in a safe manner.” During the storms, the team can monitor its generators, refrigerators, and computer systems remotely. After the storm, the same team that hardened stores help get them up and running again. When hurricanes are category two and under, volunteers sometimes ride the storms out from local stores to get them opened as soon as possible. “If it’s above a category two, we don’t let anybody stay in the store in any type of track.” Once a hurricane has passed through, and the roads are safe, and wind speeds are around 35 miles per hour or less, recovery teams — knowing cell service is likely to be offline — are instructed to go to the closest store to their houses to make a difference however possible, and to then go to the next store to make a difference. They eventually meet at pre-designated rally points.
Recovery typically involves first making the store watertight again, and then supplying it with power and refrigeration to serve its community as fast as possible. “The first thing we do when we get there is do a three-sixty around the store, get any debris out of the way, and check that the generator has fuel,” says Merrill. “We climb onto the roof and check it for damage. We check gas lines, too — we’ve had them rip off the building, and start blowing natural gas out, and we’ve had to shut that off.” The team also verifies the integrity of awnings and sprinkler systems, which have also been ripped from stores in storms past. Air conditioners are also checked.
ida hits home
TOGETHER WE REBUILD
Roof damage is repaired immediately. Water penetration plus high humidity can lead to a mold problem. It can also render refrigerated goods and dry goods nonsalable. “We get roofers out immediately after the assessment, get the stores watertight, and then address refrigeration and air conditioning so that humidity issues do not spoil any product.” Meanwhile, the store operations teams are working to get delivery trucks on the road as quickly and safely as possible. “This all happens within about two days. We have roofers ahead of time that we’ve already put on standby, and additional construction resources and contractors that we use on standby, to make sure that we’re first in line.” After Hurricane Ida, the biggest problem for the recovery team proved to be the lack of cell towers. The Rouses team’s preparation in advance of the storm proved beneficial and effective. Lacking communication abilities, team members went to their local stores and worked outward to prearranged meetup points. For four days, the recovery teams populated Excel spreadsheets with store impacts, what was dispatched, what needed to be done, and who was doing it. It was a ceaseless, tireless effort, and for members of recovery teams, no task is too big or small. “I was on almost every roof in the greater Baton Rouge market doing assessments. I ran
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