August 29, 2006

Hurricane Katrina 'Go Zone' Project

Mark Manuel, director of corporate development for Crown Equipment Corporation shared a presentation about his recent visit to the Gulf Coast region that was impacted by Hurricane Katrina.  The trip was in response to the Federal Governments 'Go Zone' project where corporations are offered incentives to locate facilities in the area to facilitate recovery from the disaster which occurred last year on this date.  In all, 35 corporate executives participated on the trip from companies such as Crown, Citicorp, Dow Chemical, Home Depot, Shell Oil and WalMart to name a few.

The entourage visited 3 primary areas that reflect varying degrees of devastation and recovery.  First they visited Baton Rouge, which did not suffer from a direct damage impact from the storm, however, the impact there was secondary in that the population surged by 300K people in one day of evacuations.  The area does not have sufficient services to see to the basic needs of these people and jobs in the region are scarce.  Other infrastructure elements such as highways are overtaxed as well.

Next, they visited New Orleans where he reported that the French Quarter is all but recovered to how it looked during his college days at Tulane in the 1980s.  On the other hand, the 9th Ward district is devastated with most properties still leveled and with little evidence of recovery.  Most properties are identifiable only by an address painted on the remains of the foundation.  The Lake area is affected by similar devastation.

The third area they visited was Mississippi where 1/2 of the state was designated as a disaster area as a result of the storm.  Only 1/4 of the state was unaffected.  The region was impacted with Category 1 storm force as far as 230 miles inland.

In summary, Mark shared that Louisiana remains in political turmoil which has a negative impact on the recovery of the area.  Available housing is strained by the demand and new housing requirements that are over 100 times typical demand.  Mississippi appears to be more proactive in their approach to recovery but there is still a lot of work to be done.  As for the Go Zone project, it is not feasible from his standpoint given that there is an 18 month time constraint on establishing business in the area which is not sufficient for such a significant project.

He also reported that other impact was felt by local colleges and universities.  His alma mater, Tulane, although suffering relatively minor physical damage, has had difficulty reopening due to a strained labor pool to maintain the physical plant.  They have however, reopened for classed this Fall.  The University of New Orleans was devastated by the storm and Xavier University of Louisiana suffered significant physical damage and face more significant challenges to get back in operation.  It is considered by some that Tulane may require as much as 25 years to fully recover from the impact.

Hosting Rotarian: Craig Hirschfeld