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Home / Washington Business - March/April 2008 / Made in Washington: Learning from disaster |
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Made in Washington: Learning from disaster |
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Written On: March/April 2008 |
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Written By: Daniel Brunell |
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On Dec. 3, 2007, a stormed careened into the Pacific Northwest. Wind gusts exceeding 90 mph smashed into the coast for almost 36 hours. Almost a foot of rain drenched the region, causing massive flooding. Hardest hit was Lewis County, just south of Olympia, prompting President Bush to issue a federal disaster declaration on Dec. 10.
Flooding in this area of the state is not uncommon. However, this storm was worse than most. The Chehalis River rose nearly 30 feet, the same level as the 1996 floods. In 1996, the floodwater rose gradually. This time, it came in a surge, causing massive devastation. Now, nearly four months later, residents of the area are still trying to put their lives back together.
The agriculture industry was particularly hard hit. In Lewis, Grays Harbor, and Pacific counties, more than 140 agricultural producers reported losses or damage. Dairy and cattle herds were decimated, along with other livestock. More than 1,000 head were reported lost.
In the aftermath of the storm, the agricultural community acted quickly. Land and equipment were covered in a thick layer of mud and debris from the flood. Feedstocks were wiped out, so neighbors, government officials and total strangers pulled together to feed livestock, mend fences and buildings, and rescue surviving animals.
“The outpouring of support — not only from the state but the whole of Washington’s agricultural community — is something that really makes you feel good about this state,” said Valoria Loveland, director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture. “The number of volunteers we have to help people and the donations to help people get back on their feet is amazing.”
Hard road lies ahead
Despite all that’s been done to help Lewis County agriculture recover, many obstacles still lie ahead. The sheer mass of silt and downed timber that was deposited in the open fields was something not seen before in that area.
Brick-and-mortar businesses also suffered. Gas stations, drug stores, supermarkets — even the local Wal-Mart — are still trying to recover. For some, the odds are not good. Despite a cornucopia of federal assistance and loan programs, experience shows that about 40 percent of small businesses that close due to a disaster will never re-open.
“What we are seeing most is the amount of paperwork and time it takes to get the state and federal applications and loans filed,” said Jodi Baker, vice president and director of communication for Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce, in reference to complaints about the federal assistance program. “Where people are getting frustrated is with the amount of time it takes.”
Businesses come together and help
Among all the grief and misery are some amazing success stories. In the wake of such an event, businesses and individuals forget rivalries and come together to help those in need. Whether it’s helping dig out the mud in a warehouse, providing generators to a business that needs it, or providing a temporary home to a family who lost everything, these uncommon stories of compassion become commonplace when a community pulls together in time of need.
The Wal-Mart store in Chehalis was one of the fortunate businesses that were able to quickly recover quickly. Instead of breathing a sigh of relief and sitting back, they sprang into action to help their employees and the crippled community. The morning after the flood, store manager Tom McReynolds and the employees who could make it to the store set up a satellite office to coordinate community assistance efforts and bring the store back online. The first phone calls were to the National Guard, opening the store to them to take whatever they needed for rescue and recovery efforts.
Meanwhile, store employees were trying to establish contact with their colleagues to see if everyone was all right. Unfortunately, 23 Wal-Mart employees had lost everything in the floods. The company immediately stepped in, making sure that all of the employees received their full pay for all of the time missed because of the floods. They provided food and clothing, and coordinated the delivery of donations from the public donations. Wal-Mart also provided counselors to help their employees deal with the pain and grief that always comes in the wake of disasters.
Store employees voted to take the money they had saved for their Christmas party and other events and divide it among all the employees who had lost everything. They also put together more than 680 gift baskets, delivering them to families affected by the floods.
“It’s amazing how shocking and how much disarray an event like this is. It makes you really focus on the basic needs,” said McReynolds. “It is amazing to see the power of the company and how our associates banded together to help each other and their community.”
Planning for the future
With the goal of learning from this and other disasters, AWB and the Washington State Emergency Management Division are joining hands to help educate businesses about how to prepare for future catastrophes and how to assist when disaster strikes.
“Hurricane Katrina illustrated that government is ill-equipped to handle a major catastrophe,” said AWB President Don Brunell. “When all of the finger-pointing was over, we found that we needed to better organize all of the resources and include the private sector in the planning.”
“A lot of the lessons learned from Katrina were applied to the massive flooding last December in western Washington,” said Brunell. “If you look at the way the business community immediately pitched in to help with the evacuation, relief and recovery effort, it’s an example of why it’s important to ensure that we’re included.”
“Government can only do what a vibrant, sustainable, resilient economy will allow it to do,” said Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, Washington state adjutant general and head of the Washington State Emergency Management Division. “About 85 to 90 percent of what is truly critical infrastructure for sustaining life and economic activities are owned by the private sector and not by the government… By actually bringing the businesses community into the planning, preparation, and recovery phases we can be more effective at rebuilding people’s lives and our state’s economy.”
Looking ahead, a study is underway that will examine what happened to businesses and the economy in Lewis County in the months after the flood. The Institute for Global and Community Resilience at Western Washington University has received a Quick Response Grant to fund the study. By the summer of 2008, they will have gathered enough data on business disruption and recovery in the Centralia-Chehalis area to determine how business preparedness, size and sector characteristics may have helped reduce the effects of the disaster.
Also, later this year AWB and the Emergency Management Division will host a series of business-resiliency workshops aimed at preparing businesses to work with local emergency management authorities and making their businesses more disaster-proof. In addition, the Emergency Management Division has launched a Web site that will walk you through the process of preparing your business or organization for disasters. Check it out at the link shown below.
Finally, AWB has designated staff who are receiving specialized training that will enable them to work in the state emergency management center to assist in the coordination business efforts during a disaster or other emergency. This capability makes AWB unique among business organizations and better prepared to help our members and the greater business community during emergencies. All of this is an effort to make sure that businesses are better prepared for the next disaster that hits Washington.
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