Hurricane Katrina Coverage - Turner Supply Co., Mobile, Ala.

-- Industrial Distribution, 9/9/2005

Turner Supply has several locations throughout the storm-ravaged region, three of which—its Mobile headquarters, a store in Laurel, Miss., and a sales office in Moss Point, Miss.—sustained significant damage. Fortunately, all of Turner Supply’s employees survived the storm.

The Mobile headquarters was flooded with 18 inches of water, Reagan said, so employees spent much of the first few days following the storm draining the building and salvaging what they could. As of Sept. 9, Reagan estimated that Turner Supply had lost about $100,000 worth of inventory.

Thanks to standby generators, the company’s lights and phones were working within hours on the 30th, but it would be a week before its computer system was up and running, forcing the company to operate manually until the computers were back up on Labor Day.

The Moss Point sales office was flooded with six feet of water, “so everything there was ruined,” Reagan said. And the Laurel, Miss., location sustained heavy wind damage and lost power. Reagan said it was nearly a week before anyone heard from employees there.

Click here to read the full report on the initial effects of Hurricane Katrina.