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Another Katrina could happen here, Tampa Bay told

The heart of the message to businesses from New Orleans' chamber president: Don't live in denial.

By JAMES THORNER
Published June 2, 2006

	[Times photo: Cherie Diez]
	Sandra Gunner, president of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, speaks during the St. Petersburg chamber’s forum on hurricane preparedness Thursday. “We were not prepared,” she said of her city being ravaged by Katrina last summer. Survey finds some ill-prepared for storms Insure home, or buy food? Hurricane Guide

ST. PETERSBURG - Imagine living in a city where one-third of your work force disappears overnight.

Or a place where a quarter of your hotel rooms and two-thirds of your restaurants vanish.

Sandra Gunner, president of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, has lived that economic nightmare since Hurricane Katrina. So her warning to St. Petersburg businesspeople was blunt: Stop living in denial about the possibility of a catastrophic storm hitting the Tampa Bay area.

"You have to wake up and listen," Gunner told more than 100 members of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber or Commerce on Thursday.

Gunner was the guest speaker at "Ahead of the Storm," the chamber's hurricane-preparedness forum held at the city's historic coliseum.

Gunner described her struggling hometown as a metropolis lacking many of the amenities of modern capitalism. Want a late-night Big Mac? Forget about it. McDonald's closes at 9 p.m. Banks struggle to stay open past 3 p.m., supermarkets past 6 p.m.

Half of the hospital beds have disappeared, and other cities are stealing away doctors and nurses. About two-thirds of businesses in the city remain closed for lack of customers and employees, not to mention the inevitable casualty insurance disputes and Small Business Administration loan backlogs.

About 210,000 homes were wholly or partly flooded. The post-Katrina population is 180,000; it was 459,000 before the storm.

"We don't have employees because we don't have housing," Gunner said, adding that the post-hurricane population will probably top out at 250,000.

Gunner's main advice to Tampa Bay area business owners: Write a businesses continuity plan that outlines how to keep your company humming after the water and wind subside.

Is your insurance up to date? You'd better hope so, Gunner said. It also couldn't hurt to get business-interruption insurance that pays you a replacement income until your building is repaired and your customers return.

"For some of them, it's more profitable to not open now," Gunner said of some well-insured New Orleans businesses.

Gunner highlighted some business success stories in the mayhem. During the downtime after the hurricane, Harrods casino near the city center continued paying benefits to its employees. As a result, 90 percent of the casino's employees have returned to work. The city's convention center is open for business, and the Superdome is gearing up for the start of the football season.

But most of all, Gunner stressed the sense of complacency that afflicted New Orleans before Katrina last year, even as radar showed the cyclone heading for the mouth of the Mississippi.

"Do you know where you're supposed to go?" she asked the St. Petersburg chamber crowd. "We were not prepared."

WHAT TO DO

An estimated 40 percent of small businesses never reopen after a major disaster, according to Tampa's Elliot Consulting Services. Here are a few hurricane-readiness tips for companies:

1. Make sure you're fully and properly insured. Consider insuring yourself for loss of income in the event of a catastrophe.

2. Have enough hard currency on hand to operate a "cash-only" business immediately after the storm. After Katrina, hundreds of banks and ATMs were out of commission.

3. Establish a centralized communications center so that executives and employees can stay in touch. Satellite phones and wireless Internet service might be the only ways to communicate.

4. Don't assume you'll have fuel for cars, trucks and generators. Stock up early.

5. Protect sensitive documents or transfer them to electronic files. Establish backups for valuable computer systems.Source: St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce hurricane preparedness forum

Times Staff Writer

[Last modified June 2, 2006, 06:10:01]