When the weather gets tough, contract companies get going

Nation's Restaurant News, Feb 24, 1997 by Kathy Blake

No one enjoys facing a natural disaster such as a hurricane, a tornado or an earthquake.

However, environmental calamities often seem to bring out the best in contract-company managers and employees, who sometimes learn as they go while managing to aid those most affected by such tragedies.

One sunny day last September, for example, Jeff Robertson, Southeast district manager for Daka International, got a request from Bell South to develop a disaster-preparedness plan.

"Bell South made the request for a disaster-relief plan," Robertson said. "We're their primary foodservice provider in five states, and they're responsible for maintaining telephone lines. They wanted to be sure that in the event of fallen lines we would be able to feed crews while they made repairs. And that's just what happened."

It happened just two days later, as a matter of fact. When a major hurricane blew through North Carolina, Robertson and other Daka employees went into high gear to handle the emergency.

After the hurricane walloped the coast of North Carolina, it just kept going inland, denuding the lush Raleigh area of trees and taking down most of the phone lines with it as it went.

At the time the hurricane hit, Robertson had just started gathering information, including maps and vendor's phone numbers, to be included in a disaster-response kit.

"When, we knew the hurricane was coming, there was no time," he said. "We just had to go, and we made the plan as we went along. I got a team of four to get in a truck and follow the storm so they could be on-the-spot when it was over. It turned out they were at `ground-zero' the night of the storm and stayed in a fallout shelter until the worst was over."

Even before the Bell South repair people were ready to go to work, Daka employees had set up a truck to serve box lunches and fresh water. Despite horrendous conditions -- washed-out roads and no available cooking facilities or running water -- Robertson was able to coordinate deliveries of fresh supplies so that 1,500 meals a day were served until the job was done.

Today Robertson has a briefcase stuffed with names and telephone numbers of companies that can provide mobile kitchens and trucks and vendors that can make quick deliveries, and items a disaster team needs on the scene, including flashlights and first-aid supplies. "We learned the hard way, but we learned," he said.

Nina Martin, Aramark's foodservice director at GTE in Everett, Wash., said the Northwest was forced to learn some painful lessons this winter. The Puget Sound area has been hit with record rainfall and an unusual amount of snow, topped off with record-setting freezes followed by mudslides when the ice melted.

"The weather is never great in the Seattle area, but we were completely unprepared for the one-to-two feet of snow we received the day after Christmas," Martin said.

The GTE office building where Martin directs foodservice is a central location for 1,100 service representatives who answer GTE customers' questions. "Someone had to be here to answer the phones, because when GTE's customers call for help they don't care that we've got snow on the ground," Martin said. "And we had to be here to make sure the employees got coffee and a hot breakfast every morning."

Many GTE employees, as well as some of the Aramark foodservice staff, were among the 200,000 Washington residents who had no power, heat or hot water in their homes for several days. Consequently, they relied on the GTE cafeteria for at least one hot meal a day.

"I was so proud that my staff got into work regardless of the obstacles," Martin said. "Because of the weather, several catering events were canceled, but we were here and prepared to serve." Martin reported that food and flowers not used at the canceled events were donated to food banks, shelters and a Salvation Army kitchen in the area.

"That kind of challenge reminds us of the importance of setting priorities and establishing a plan for a lot of contingencies," Martin said.

On the other hand, Bob Spano, foodservice director at Cardigan Mountain School in Canaan, N.H., wrote the book on disaster-preparedness-and-response but hasn't yet been called upon to put his procedures to work.

Cardigan Mountain School, a private boarding school for 200 boys, is a Daka account where three meals a day routinely are served seven days a week.

Spano said he' a preparedness "hobbyist" who has attended conferences on antiterrorism sponsored by the federal government and abides by the Boy Scout motto: "Be Prepared." As a result, he has written a safety manual that includes detailed guidance on procedures for confronting potential disasters ranging from power loss to earthquakes to bomb threats.

"One of the most essential parts of a plan is to establish an order of command," he pointed out. "Everyone has to know who's in charge so that services don't get duplicated and everything gets done in a timely, responsible way."

However, it is far better to be prepared because you don't know when those skills will be needed, agreed Peter Alessio, vice president of operations at Lackmann Food Service, Woodbury, N.Y. The Long Island Lighting Co., or LILCO, a major Lackmann account, is among the first companies expected to respond after a major storm.