Having started on June 1^st and running through November 30^th hurricane season is underway and as always, we plan for the worst and pray for the best.  I wanted to take a moment and share with you the steps we have taken to ensure continuity not only in our operations but yours in the months ahead.

Rest assured J.W. Allen & Company is ready for the 2012 Hurricane season.  In the event a hurricane should threaten the New Orleans metro area the city may order a mandatory evacuation.  Businesses will be advised to shut down and residents will be ordered to evacuate and leave town.  The Port of New Orleans, along with other ports in Southeast Louisiana, will also be ordered shut down until the threat has passed.  J. W. Allen & Company adheres to local and state government evacuation guidelines and when ordered to do so will close our office ensuring the safety of our employees and their families.

After securing the office, our employees will be out of touch for a window of time. On a personal level, employees will have limited time to secure their own property, gather family members, pack up supplies, fill their vehicle(s) with gas and put our beloved pet’s in a travel cage in preparation to head out of town in bumper to bumper traffic for hours on end before arriving at our chosen destination.

In 2011 we moved our computers to a data center, a safe house if you will, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana allowing us access to our computer network 24 / 7 / 365.  As our employees start arriving at their destination(s) they will be able to connect to the network and resume normal business operations!  The placement of our network computers in a data center allows us to contact customer’s and vendors, receive up to date information and keep you abreast of what is happening with your shipment  regardless where our employees have temporarily relocated to wait out the storm.

As soon as our employees are settled and connected, we will be touching base with Customer’s providing shipment status updates.

The Importance of scanning documents:

J.W. Allen scans all customer files and documents into a document retention program.  This allows us access to all operational and administrative files protecting us from important documents getting lost, wet, blown away or worse in the event of a catastrophe.  You can rest easy knowing all documents and private shipment information is safe, protected and yet accessible by our staff.

Re-entry program:

In 2006 local governments in conjunction with the State of Louisiana developed a re-entry program for the return of residents into the New Orleans metro area.  This program allows essential businesses and personnel advance return to the New Orleans metro area in a tiered structure based on business function and critical need.  J.W. Allen qualified for tier 2 which allows our management team permission to return to the New Orleans metro area prior to non-essential businesses and residents, giving us the advantage to survey and repair damages to our office prior to the re-entry of “all” businesses and residents.

This process assures no business or individual can return to the city before there are adequate and sufficient services to support people and operations.  There’s no point in returning to a place of business if there are no communications or utilities to do business.  With this fore-knowledge the right time can be chosen to instruct our staff when to shut down their remote operations and return to the office.

Through our website and via email JWA will be able to keep you advised of the current situation and our plans.  Be it to support your business remotely or in office it’s our goal to make this as seamless a process as possible and the catastrophe plan we have in place offers us the best opportunity to do so.

We’ve come a long way!

Regards
Cathy