Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina: How to Maintain Operations During a Regional Disaster
Hurricane Katrina’s economic impact leaves many questions unanswered. Why were businesses not more prepared to recover quickly and continue operating in the face of this disaster? Why did they not have plans in place to account for and protect employees and their families, keeping them safe and productive?
The economic effect of Hurricane Katrina on area businesses and the economy were more severe and further-reaching than those of any other natural disaster in U.S. history— at an estimated cost of $200 billion. The widespread devastation in the Gulf Coast region, the associated dislocation of economic activity, and the boost to energy prices set spending, production and employment back to a point from which it has still not recovered.
The hurricane severely impacted or destroyed workplaces in New Orleans and other heavily populated areas of the northern Gulf coast, resulting in thousands of lost jobs and millions of dollars in lost tax revenues for the impacted communities and states. New Orleans alone was home to 30,262 businesses, including the headquarters of smaller companies and enterprises with headquarters or satellite offices there, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Before the hurricane, the region supported approximately one million non-farm jobs, with 600,000 of them in New Orleans.
See Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina: How to Maintain Operations During a Regional Disaster, a white paper from Sungard Availability Services.
Tags: disaster preparedness, exposure, hurricane, impact, Katrina, loss, natural disasters
