Together We Rebuild

By David W. Brown

After 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.

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 49a chainsaw, I moved buggies — whatever it took to get through this thing and get our stores open safely,” says Merrell.

PROTECTING THE TEAM

According to Tim Acosta, the director of advertising and marketing for Rouses Markets, Hurricane Ida was “a fastball.”

“It came quickly and seemed to come out of nowhere,” he says. Once it was clear that a storm was coming — and with a perilous track, at that — hurricane preparation began. “We already have hurricane plans in place where all we have to do is pull the trigger.” The company immediately began rolling out extra loads of water and other supplies generally useful to customers during hurricanes, including bread, batteries, non-perishable foods, packaged meats, cold cuts, and snacks.

After the storm, with limited staff and limited hours, customers were able to return, though in controlled numbers, so that checkout lines were not overwhelmed. Office support personnel were directed to stores near their homes to supplement teams. The entire response was a lifeline for local communities.

“They were so appreciative,” says Acosta. “Nobody could believe that we were able to open so fast. We were the first grocery stores to open immediately after the storm. The fact that we had products ready for them when

they came in, and that we had truckloads of products continuing to roll them in immediately after the storm and until this day, was very welcome for communities, who needed recovery supplies.”

Getting those supplies to stores operating in the middle of a literal disaster is no small effort. Wholesalers were as affected as everyone else. “At the same time,” says Acosta, “we had to find ways to get products out stores, so we had to think outside the box.” The Rouses team worked directly with vendors and manufacturers, and when possible, bypassed wholesale suppliers until they could get on two feet. “We had truckloads of products shipped directly from the manufacturer or the vendor warehouses straight into our stores.”

After the storm, with most areas without power and with heavy traffic on roads during the day, trucks rolled overnight and arrived at three o’clock in the morning at stores. “That’s how we overcame that challenge and were getting grocery products in our stores.” That required having staff onsite to receive the shipments, unload the inventory, and set up the stores for customers.

Because many Rouses team members were affected, the corporate office had to figure out how to help make life easier for them. “People were having trouble getting fuel for their cars due to the long fuel lines. It was another problem we had to face, and the solution we came up with was to have

500-gallon fuel tanks behind select locations in each market for our team members to be able to get fuel to fill up their vehicles, so they would have to worry about that. They had gas to get back and forth, rather than spending five or six hours in a gas station line.”

Many team members were personally affected by the loss of homes and property. To help them recover, the company established a $100,000 Rouses team member disaster relief fund. It was later opened up for vendors and suppliers as well. Employee pay in affected areas was also boosted to help make life a little easier for everyone.

Because the company is headquartered in Houma, Rouses was mindful to help out its home community. “We were not forgetting about our folks down here,” says Acosta. Groups came down and cooked hot meals for anyone in the community who was hungry, started regular community events, and dedicated part of parking lots in various store locations to the Salvation Army, which also provided hot meals to people struggling after the storm.

“Hurricane season is basically another season for us, like preparing for football season or Christmas,” says Acosta. “It’s an unfortunate reality that disasters affect us, and part of our business is to prepare for them, to be here for our communities.” The most important thing, he says, is the safety of Rouses team members and customers. To that end, after storms, stores open as late as possible, but still close early enough for team members to get home safely.

The team, says Donny Rouse, has really stepped up for the community and each other. “I just want to thank our employees for the hard work that they’ve done,” he says. “Last year, we had seven or so storms hit all our markets. This year, we had just one so far, but we took the sort of direct hit that we’d never really want to take. But our employees and our buildings held up extremely well, and we were able to open quickly and safely, get groceries on shelves, and serve as communities in need. The team did a phenomenal job.”