NEW ORLEANS–When thinking about disaster preparedness on a citywide level, New Orleans generally comes to mind only for a lack thereof. Images of the destruction and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are still front-of-mind for many people, even three years later. But the storm was a wake-up call to the Crescent City, and the recent experience with Hurricane Gustav last summer proved things have indeed changed for the better.
Hotel properties suffered greatly during Katrina and in the months following. Frank Zumbo, GM of the Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel, said his hotel was one of the most damaged in the city.
“This hotel sustained some pretty substantial flood damage,” Zumbo said. “We’re talking about 2 or 3 feet of standing water in the lobby for three or four weeks, so the entire first floor was completely gutted. All the laundry downstairs, the engineering, the electrical had to be rebuilt.”
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Zumbo explained the first floor restaurant also was completely destroyed. The hotel didn’t open for three months, and at that point, it had a temporary front desk on the second floor. It remained open in this arrangement for one year and then undertook a large redesign project of public spaces.
The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans also experienced difficulties during Katrina, according to GM Myra deGersdorff. The hotel was fortunate to be hosting a convention of infectious disease physicians when Katrina hit; about 20 of the doctors could not get out of the city, and the hotel served as a miniature medical unit. At one point, a team needed to cross the flooded street to get medical supplies and drugs from Walgreens.
“It was pretty interesting to see our catering director and a couple of others float across Canal Street in a laundry bin,” she said.
The Gustav response
Zumbo’s staff was extra careful when Hurricane Gustav approached the city as a Category 3 storm in late August. They pulled everything out of the first floor and the basement and stored it above the first floor’s old flood line.
“I can’t say enough for how the city handled the storm,” Zumbo said. “Obviously, it’s a scary time because stories and pictures of Katrina are still in people’s minds.”
William McCreary, area managing director for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and GM of the Sheraton New Orleans, had nothing but praise for how both the city and the state government handled the situation.
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“The governor did a wonderful job,” he said. “He prepared the state for what was coming. The mayor, using his homeland security coordinator and the plan that was developed after Katrina, was ready to do what needed to be done. We had response resources staged; we had things that we needed in the city to ride the storm out; we had people waiting outside the city to come in and do repair work."
“To me, I think the city did a phenomenal job,” Zumbo said. “Communication was incredible from the [Convention and Visitors Bureau]. I was getting e-mails two to three times a day, keeping us informed of the progress. We all felt pretty comfortable that, based on the strength of the storm, it was going to be a mandatory evacuation. We knew before anyone else knew what was going to happen and when it was going to happen. … I think the plans were a lot more detailed, and they were executed a lot better than [with previous storms].”
DeGersdorff echoed the positive sentiments.
“Overall, the difference was amazing to watch. I was really, really pleased with the local government and how they handled Gustav,” she said.
Being clear and forthright is essential in these types of emergency situations, she said.
“You start communicating to your own guests, ‘We’re going to close the hotel at ‘X’ date and ‘X’ time, and you really need to get on your plane and go home,’” deGersdorff said.
Those guests who can’t get out, deGersdorff said, are sent to the Loews New Orleans Hotel or the Harrah’s New Orleans Hotel & Casino, both designated drop-off points the city has determined. There, buses are waiting to take people out of the city to Baton Rouge, La., Houston, or another city away from the storm’s predicted path.
“It’s very well coordinated,” deGersdorff said. “There is no shelter of last resort in the city anymore—not the convention center or the Superdome. You saw what happened with that [during Katrina].”
The Ritz-Carlton has taken action as well. It now has a secondary generator and a hookup for diesel trucks to plug into the system. It also installed interlocking floodgates and a pumping system for the basement.
“We have plans that we enact. … Some of them start 72 hours out, with details for 60 hours out, 50 hours out and so on. … You are literally taking all the filing cabinets out of human resources and taking them up to the second floor. All the uniforms are brought up out of the laundry, any of the bins that have linen in them are brought up; a lot of engineering has to move out. It is costly from a labor standpoint, and then you have to have it organized. You’ve got to do it in a way that you can actually operate out of—you can’t just stick it somewhere,” deGersdorff said.
“We moved all our non-residents out of the city; we didn’t give them a choice,” McCreary said. “The airport handled it extremely well. The recovery process was very well managed, and it was because of all the work that had been done to prepare for it.”
Future outlook
McCreary said New Orleans is now better prepared to deal with a hurricane than any other city in the country.
“I think [Katrina] was a turning point for the city in an awful lot of ways, not the least of which we just experienced with Gustav,” McCreary said. “Evidence of that is how smoothly we handled the brush we had with Gustav. There was more to that storm than most people know. … We had winds in excess of 80 mph.”
McCreary thinks the success is because of the people of New Orleans.
“The people who are here are the real pioneer stock. They want to be here. They’re going to be here regardless of what happens, and [they] take tremendous pride in the city and will not let this city be anything less than a success. … That spirit, that vitality is evident everywhere,” McCreary said.
Zumbo agreed that the city is on the right track in dealing with future storms.
“In the long run, I think [Gustav’s] going to help us. We took a pretty good hit. We didn’t flood, the levees held, and there’s still three years to go before they get them to the level that they are going to be comfortable with,” Zumbo said. “So, if anything, I think it gives a little more confidence to people that New Orleans is safe—[they’ll say] ‘Let’s go back, and all the things that we loved about the city before are back there, let’s go back and enjoy it.’”
pheney@questex.com
