Lessons from Charley

Friday, Aug. 13, 2004, will long live in the memories of everyone caught in the storm, but just as harrowing for the hardest-hit were the long weeks and months that followed. Even a year later, many still have not fully recovered; and some lost their battles, closing up shop or moving away.

We asked business people what lessons they learned, what they might have done differently, and what advice they would share with other businesses in hurricane-prone areas.

Charlie Brown

President and chief executive officer, Charlotte State Bank

The day after the hurricane, Charlotte State Bank was open with a skeleton crew; and by Monday it was back in business, primarily because it was disaster-ready. In fact, the bank's recovery went so well that Brown was invited to speak about it at the launch of Ready.gov, a federal Homeland Security program and Web site promoting disaster-recovery plans.

The keys, he says, are electricity, multiple backups and putting your people first-but not necessarily in that order.

A permanent generator, installed during construction, powered the bank's 11,000-square-foot headquarters in Port Charlotte, complete with air conditioning, although its Punta Gorda branches were closed for a couple of weeks.

With backup plans, says Brown, "go three-deep in everything," from the keys to the generator to the diesel vendors to fuel it. Armed guards were brought in to provide security, he says, and the air conditioning gave sheriff's deputies a place to stay at night.

But most importantly: "Put your people first," he says. "We created an island of normalcy."

On Monday morning, a team went out to check on staff. The bank bought them ice, food, diapers and other needs and stocked a room with "whatever you could imagine in a convenience store," provided free to staff. Through its Employee Assistance Program, it brought counselors and social workers to help employees. "When it comes to a situation like that, leadership needs to remember to forget and forgive, because people don't act the same way in a disaster as they do in their day-to-day work habits," Brown stresses.

Steve Greenstein

Executive director, Sanibel and Captiva Islands Chamber of Commerce

"You have to have a network of support around you, and that includes not only your insurance agent but your employees and your friends. You're going to need a lot of help," says Greenstein.

One of the biggest surprises was that even cell phones went down, he points out. Some businesses and officials now keep several service providers.

For island businesses, Greenstein recommends that owners make sure authorities know how to reach them, because no one was allowed back on Sanibel and Captiva for a number of days after the hurricane. And prepare as well as possible to be without power for a long time; for example, if you have a restaurant, you might want to take perishables with you when you evacuate.

Julie Mathis

Executive director, Charlotte County Chamber of Commerce

Mathis took her hard drive and files home, but when her roof started to go, she wasn't thinking about work files. Next time, she'll ship back up all her important files and send copies of important documents well in advance of a storm to a sister up north. "Even if it's two months out, it's better than nothing," she says, "and it's not costly for a small business to do to get your records out of Dodge."

Matt Nemec

Owner of Tiki's Clothing, Punta Gorda

Nemec's downtown Punta Gorda shop was shuttered for three months. Insurance helped keep Tiki's Clothing alive.

"First and foremost, you have to have an insurance plan. You have to have business interruption; you have to have your products covered," says Nemec. "Some businesses went down forever because they had no way to build back up. They had to put their own money back into their product, for more building space and their income was lost."

Tiki's is in leased space where he can't install hurricane shutters, says Nemec. "That would have mitigated probably 80 percent of my loss."

Other advice: Keep accepting inventory deliveries, and negotiate payment plans with vendors and creditors. He found them sympathetic; they prefer deferred payments to no payments. He also recommends hiring a public adjuster. Your local agent will probably be overwhelmed, and a public adjuster can focus on getting you a good settlement, while you focus on your business. "You pay them a little bit to make a lot," says Nemec.

Mike Quaintance

President, Cape Coral Chamber of Commerce

Don't throw out those old telephones, says Quaintance. Chamber staff were trying to reach members to provide help, and new phones, which rely on electricity, were useless since the power was out. But Quaintance dug out some old phones that worked without power and they started making calls Saturday morning. Interestingly, they ultimately reached members more easily via e-mail than by phone, he adds. A plan is now in place for teams of staff and volunteers to visit members in person to help them out.

The chamber also quickly found its list of referrals didn't have nearly enough roofers, screeners, aluminum workers and others in high demand after the storm. So it called on neighboring chambers and the Cape Coral Construction Industry Association for additional resources, and it helped newly arriving construction and cleanup businesses figure out what was required for them to do business in the city.

"We're a lot better prepared as far as that stuff goes," says Quaintance.

Karen Ryan

Public relations manager, Lee County Electric Cooperative

Although communication to the public went fairly

smoothly in cooperation with local media, says Ryan, LCEC was swamped with calls, so regular morning and evening updates will be scheduled in a future event.

The co-op also has more advanced education tools in place, including a guide that explains the restoration process, so fewer people will call to see why that truck down the street didn't restore their power and what kinds of trees are appropriate to plant near power lines.

Other changes include supply distribution. After Charley, materials were delivered to crews throughout the five-county area; in the future, staging areas will be established where crews can collect materials, and act as communications centers. The company is also looking into satellite phones, further diversifying its cell providers, and even old-fashioned bulletin boards where people can post messages.

Jeff Shuff

General manager, 'Tween Waters Inn

The Captiva resort's best defense was its new buildings with steel roofs, Shuff says; they withstood Charley, leaving only 12 units with water damage and one cottage crushed by a tree.

It also helped that most of the Australian pines-which caused devastation and ripped up power lines all over Captiva and Sanibel-already had been cleared from the property, and the resort regularly prunes at the beginning of each hurricane season.

Getting employees back out to the restricted islands was difficult, though, and he plans to discuss alternatives with authorities, because immediate cleanup was key to getting the resort back on its feet. They did get water damage cleaned up right away, preventing mold, and 'Tween Waters managed to reopen within just a couple of months.

Shuff is considering a satellite phone, and preparation in the future will include taking down exterior signage. He's also looking for water sources for cleanup. "We used the five-gallon jugs to wash dishes," he says.

Sandra Stilwell

Owner of several Captiva businesses.

When the hurricane swept across Captiva, it damaged all seven of Stilwell's businesses-Captiva Island Inn, four eateries and two shopping centers-plus her year-old home, where she rode out the storm with her son and six employees. But as soon as the storm passed, she and the employees got to work.

She learned to wield a chainsaw to clear the downed trees, and they salvaged parts from some of the businesses to use in others. (Keylime Bistro was ready to open three weeks later, but Hurricane Frances shut it down again.) She sent her son for supplies on the mainland, but when he returned with ice, more generators and fuel, the National Guard wouldn't let him back on the island. However, Stilwell had been feeding the guardsmen and they knew her, so they delivered the supplies.

It turned out that her business-interruption coverage would pay only if she remained closed for six months, but she had 85 employees who needed to get back to work; otherwise, it would have meant hiring and training a whole new staff.

Fortunately, she had cash reserves. "At one time I had $550,000 out of my pocket, negative cash flow, and sales had dropped by almost $2 million. You have to have the staying power to make it through something like that," she says.

Joe Waksler

Owner of Morton's Ace Hardware, Port Charlotte

Waksler still is shocked when he thinks about how his 25-year-old family business was utterly flattened. The concrete roof disappeared and the block walls caved in, taking the store contents with them. Early on, he expected it would be rebuilt and open by spring. "I was sadly mistaken," he says.

New county design standards took time; Small Business Administration loans took longer than expected; and by late May, insurance still hadn't paid the business-interruption coverage. He held onto his 20 employees by taking out more loans.

His advice? "I would definitely make sure my building was up to code. A lot of these buildings were built in [the] early '70s and were just not ready for this to come through."