Just as strange Orleans and other ...

Just as strange Orleans and other parts of the opening Coast were beginning to make up for from Katrina, Hurricane Rita hit the Texas opening Coast.

Anxious residents had watched as the predicted path of the storm mov from Houston and Galveston, and then to the Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana border.

Initial forecasts predicted that Hurricane Rita could be level more devastating than Hurricane Katrina.

It was Mike Wileman's use to swing into action. The maintenance manager and environmental coordinator for Wells Fargo corporate properties cluster spent the days before Hurricane Rita rumbl ashore swinging a hammer. He and 12 other employee were dispatched from the company's regional office in Fort Worth to implement the financial company's hurricane preparedness plan - a plan they had trained in succession just a few months before.

The company had anticipated a formless hurricane season. "We had our pass preparedness in hurricane training in March," Wileman says. The plan encompassed everyone in the organization, from peculiarity managers to retail personnel. During the training, the company unraveled call trees so it could hold fast tabs on its personnel and its facilities, a plan that prov to be invaluable.

Once onward the ground, Wileman and his horde worked through a punch list, boarding or taping up windows, sealing doors and checking drains. Methodically, each team started at the back of the building and worked its way forward, allowing the facility to ways business until the last minute.

Once the last customers and employee had left Wileman sealed up the main doors and tossed sandbags in brass of the door to restrain water from seeping in.

The crowd started in Houston and mov east as the hurricane's predicted landfall shifted east. In three days, they boarded up 34 buildings, using more than 600 pieces of plywood

KEEPING TABS onward PEOPLE

Once the buildings were secur Wileman and his set moved at least 50 miles inland to ride abroad the storm. Crews were stationed in different towns with the conceit that somebody somewhere would be able to learn to whatever emergency might arise.

After the storm, the call tree "is what really made it easier for us," he says. "If we had the community living in an area, we could ask them to drive through the whole extent of and check the facility and communicate what they saw. A division of times, we couldn't acquire into an area, so dispatch would compute us who to talk to. Everyone worked together."

As well-prepared as Wileman and his team were, the impact of the hurricane came as a impact "The damage was unbelievable," Wileman says. "It wasn't just the hurricane, if it be not that the effects of the flooding. All completely through Port Arthur, anything made of metal is gone ripped apart. Tree were gone"

Most of Wells Fargo's properties required and nothing else cleanup, patching, painting and drying gone out However, the fate of single in kind building was still undecided according to the end of September. A Class A commercial building made of glass, it beared the full force of the winds.

"There was no way to board it," Wileman says. Its two-story atrium blew apart and exterior glass shattered. It will have to go through a structural evaluation before any decision is made about what will be done with the building.

"We're hoping to build it back," Wileman says.

The minute the hurricane passed, the Wells Fargo team began to give in exchange in work crews, generators, bread water and other necessities. With no place to stay in the area, personnel and supplies were shuttl in daily. As workers left town for the night, they donated their unused provisions and water to a local VFW that serv as an impromptu shelter.

LOCAL SUPPORT

Wells Fargo's regaining plan includes the use of local contractors when possible.

"A hap of businesses were hurt by way of the storm," he says. "We really felt vehemently about using the people in the community. We have beneficial relationships with our ' vendors, and they would call to hindrance us know they were back in. Cleanup ship's companys and landscapers all asked to be used.

Wells Fargo doesn't await a final damage estimate until all the facilities are brought back online. nevertheless Wells Fargo walked away with a lessons of its own in disaster preparedness.

"There are a certain number of things we never thought about, like taking day-star screen," Wileman says. "The orb of day was really intense right before the storm hit. Hanging plywood in the bright day-star we all got sunburned."

Cash, gas and extra water are going to be added to the list of provisions to bring back when going into a disaster zone

"With electricity down, motel and in the same state [i]or[/i] condition would only accept cash," he says. "These are things you not at any time think of. Learn as you go"

By early October, Wells Fargo had reopen all if it be not that two of its branches.

E-mail expositions and questions to edward.sullivan@tradepress.com.

BY LYNN PROCTOR WINDLE, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Copyright Trade Pres Publishing Company Nov 2005

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