When he was able to go back to the apartment after a few weeks for an inspection,
he noticed that the windows were open. It
was obvious that someone had entered his
apartment through the windows during
the flooding. It was not looting, however –
just someone looking for refuge. They ate
the food and drank what liquids he had,
which is to be expected. Nothing else was
disturbed, and no personal items were
taken from the apartment. It was kept neat
and just used as a place of refuge – not
newsworthy.
Courtesy Entergy Thermal.
Flooding around the plant peaked at 5 ft above street level, as shown by this closeup of the waterline.
the city. These shots had to be offered and
administered by our company because the
hospital and clinics in the area were still
closed. Local suppliers were out of business; telephone lines were dead, and no
one had email. It took a while to re-establish contacts, and many of them had to
start up business in temporary locations.
For some people this meant living in their
new offices because they had no access
to their homes or hotels. Suppliers were
maintaining contact by cell phone and
making deliveries as needed.
Fortunately, everyone in the area
stayed focused on the end result. It seemed
everyone was pitching in to do a job just
because they knew it had to be done.
For a while, office space in our plant
and the conference room were used by our
customers. This lasted until they were able
to gain access to portions of their buildings and get power and communication
back in service.
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USA TODAY, Sept. 14, 2005
having the power turned back on. In many
cases, it was necessary to make temporary
modifications to the building systems to
provide power only from the second floor
up because of flood damage. The first
floors were damaged, and all lower floors
were flooded. Water needed to be pumped
out, and sheetrock and all internal fixtures,
furniture, etc., removed. Equipment and
control systems needed to be rebuilt.
We have been working closely with
our customers to coordinate the restoration of their facilities and their return to
service. This has meant attending their
meetings with contractors and being
involved with their reconstruction schedules. We have also performed work that
was an extension of our service. For example, we have taken on the responsibility to
get customers’ building pumps rebuilt and
variable-frequency drives replaced – even
replacing the motors ourselves if necessary. We have worked as an extension of
their staff, keeping them informed of the
progress but allowing them to focus on
the balance of their buildings and systems.
The situation has made everyone
rethink their priorities. What facilities
really need cooling first? It is buildings
such as libraries – to avoid mildew and
mold damage to the books. Student housing was originally thought to have a low
priority, but in this type of catastrophic
situation its importance increases
because the need to house restoration
staff is very great. The logistics of having
your daily work force located more than
50 miles away in temporary lodging
makes staffing a big problem. Housing
for workers is by far the biggest problem
the city of New Orleans faces in its battle
to start some semblance of normal activity.
How do you run hotels or service industries when the employees you need aren’t
available because they have no place to
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USA TODAY, Sept. 26, 2005
While our plant always maintained
its capability to produce chilled water,
our customers’ buildings were not able to
use it. Their building electrical systems
had to be inspected and repaired prior to
One good note: One of our employees
reported a positive experience in the midst
of negative news coverage. We heard so
much about looting and bad behavior of
people, but it’s rarely news when someone
does anything good. This employee lived
in a second-floor apartment, and the water
in his area was deep enough to be just a
few inches from entering his apartment.
Then, three weeks into our Katrina
restoration, Hurricane Rita appeared. We
also operate four district energy facilities
in Houston. New Orleans refugees temporarily housed at the Houston Astrodome
were evacuated again, this time to Arkansas.
The Astrodome became a staging area for
emergency facilities in anticipation of a
major hit by Rita on the Houston area.
What we had learned in New Orleans
over the past weeks was put into immedi-
