Jacksonville’s major employers are assessing the damage left by Hurricane Irma that cleared grocery store shelves, emptied ATMs and drained overtime budgets. It’s too early put a dollar figure on the damage and disruption, but a review of some of the city’s largest employers, as identified by the JAX Chamber, shows they used strategies developed from past storms:
Baptist Medical Center, with 10,500 employees, put the lessons it learned last year from Hurricane Matthew to good use and weathered Irma in terms of patient service and overall operations.
But the post-Irma storm surge in San Marco caused flooding in the basement of the Downtown Southbank campus and significant damage to Jacksonville Orthopaedic Institute, Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center and the outpatient clinic across the street.
“There was significant water and mud damage,” said Karen Ketchie, director of emergency management for Baptist Health. “It’s going to take a significant effort to get it back to the level we want it to be. We don’t have a dollar figure yet. We’re still doing assessments.”
Hurricane Matthew was a good teacher, Ketchie said. Baptist restructured its emergency incident leadership and team, rethought procedures such as supply chains, patient transportation, even the most efficient way to feed employees during a storm — box lunches instead of a hot bar.
“With Matthew, we had time to strategize, do walk-throughs. How many people do we need and where? What are the pathways when elevators are down?” Ketchie said. “We had hours to prepare. Matthew was extremely smooth and we followed the same format.”
Each campus has its own incident command center that reports to a central command center based at the Downtown campus. As Hurricane Irma approached, Ketchie said the decision was made to close the Beaches and Nassau County hospitals, which were in evacuation zones, and transfer 83 patients to other campuses. In addition, 39 employees from the closed hospitals shifted to the other campuses as well and supplemented the emergency staffing.
Some patients at Wolfson Children’s Hospital at the Downtown campus, also in an evacuation zone, were moved to higher floors, Ketchie said. Because the high wind made the electrical supply unstable, the Downtown campus and Wolfson switched to emergency generator power, she said.
The evacuated patients returned to their hospitals Tuesday.
It’s too early to know what Irma will cost the hospital system, but Ketchie said it will be significantly more than Matthew, at $3.5 million.
When things return to normal, Ketchie said, queries will be sent to all departments to determine what worked and what didn’t, and to find solutions.
But even in the midst of Irma, Baptist employees took advantage of time for emergency preparedness training, Ketchie said.
“We had a lull, so we had a 45-minute session reminding people what to do in tornadoes and mass casualties,” Ketchie said. “We made it mandatory for everybody in the house, that was about 1,000 people, everyone from office staff, doctors, nurses, even CEO Hugh Greene.”
Bank of America, with an area workforce of 8,000, was assessing damage to its two dozen Jacksonville branches Wednesday before deciding which ones to reopen. Branches elsewhere in Florida were being opened on a limited basis.
“We look at a number of factors. In some areas, it’s employee availability but mostly it’s the buildings. We have to make sure there was no damage, that security is in place, that power is up, servers functioning. It might be different at every place. Our goal is to get our branches up as fast we can,” said spokesman Matthew Dailey.
Until branches can reopen, mobile financial centers and ATMs have been deployed to assist customers, Dailey said.
The bank will be in touch with consumers and small business clients in FEMA-designated disaster areas who might be eligible for financial assistance.
As it did with Hurricane Harvey, The Bank of America Charitable Foundation donated $1 million to Hurricane Irma relief. The company also is matching employee donations, which have exceeded $1.5 million for both storms.
The Winn-Dixie, Bi-Lo, Fresco y Más and Harveys stores operated by Southeastern Grocers, with 5,700 associates in Northeast Florida, was hit by a storm of shoppers long before Irma made landfall.
Most stores had sold out of staples like bottled water, batteries and canned goods. Then stores closed and the distribution network was at a standstill until the storm passed.
Spokesman Joe Caldwell said almost all its North Florida stores have reopened and are being restocked.
“We have robust internal processes in place to help us determine how quickly stores can reopen,” Caldwell said, “We flow information quickly through our leadership team and empower our regional leadership to make the right decision for their stores, associates and customers.”
Because Irma continues to affect the Southeast, the company has not yet determined the financial impact, Caldwell said. The company will review its response to the storm and adjust for future storms.
“We learned many lessons during Hurricane Matthew but Hurricane Irma was unprecedented in the modern era,” Caldwell said. “We’re proud to report 99 percent of our North Florida stores are open and serving our customers. We could not do that without our incredible, resilient team of associates, some of whom have storm damage and Irma impacts, as well.”
CSX Corp.’s Downtown riverfront headquarters escaped the post-Irma flooding, but freight service throughout the region was disrupted by the storm.
“CSX discontinued freight shipments into Florida late last week, out of concern for employees’ safety and to protect our customers’ freight,” said spokesman Rob Doolittle. “Across our network, rail traffic was impacted in parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.”
As of Wednesday, limited service had been restored in Jacksonville and normal operations resumed in Georgia and the Carolinas, Doolittle said.
“Service into other parts of Florida will resume when we can complete inspections and remove trees and other debris from the tracks, which continues to be a priority,” Doolittle said. “We have advised customers to expect delays as that process continues, and we are providing updates to our customers as the situation evolves.”
JAX Chamber listed CSX’s job count at 3,600, but that has dropped after the company cut at least 500 management jobs and other employees.
As one of the nation’s largest financial services companies, JPMorgan Chase, with 3,900 local employees, took its lessons from hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and Harvey, said spokesman Michael Fusco.
“Our resiliency team worked hard to prepare us, to make sure employees and buildings were prepared and that our branches were able to serve customers,” Fusco said. “We monitored our ATMs to keep them stocked with cash.”
Some branches stayed open late and were equipped with generators, so they were able to reopen quickly after the storm passed. In some areas, mobile ATMs were brought in. Fees for consumers and businesses in FEMA areas are being waived.
“Our large Jacksonville sites opened at 8 a.m. Tuesday,” Fusco said. “We also opened dozens of Chase branches across Florida not only for our customers but for anyone who wants to spend time in the air conditioning and recharge their phone. We’re not kidding about that.”
The company is donating $1 million to hurricane relief, including $250,000 each to the American Red Cross and International Medical Corps and $500,000 to nonprofits throughout the affected areas.
UF Health Jacksonville, with an area workforce of 3,600, had minor leaks and switched to generators for power outages at its main hospital on West Eighth Street, spokesman Dan Leveton said.
An emergency operations center was open from Saturday through Tuesday and extra staff was brought in on two shifts to work during and after the storm, he said.
“We had a lot of people here 24/7. Most of them slept here and we made sure everyone was fed. We had 500 patients here and another 70 on the Northside. Our ER and trauma centers were open, but not especially busy.”
UF Health clinics were closed Monday and Tuesday, mostly because they didn’t want people traveling in unsafe conditions. All were open Wednesday.
Wells Fargo, with 3,500 area staff, is starting to open its Jacksonville branches and others are being assessed for storm damage and connectivity. However, the Wells Fargo Center remains closed, said spokesman Michael Gray. Mobile ATMs will be deployed where needed.
Business operations are being managed elsewhere until the tower reopens. Wells Fargo leases space in the Downtown building.
Wells Fargo is providing relief for the next 90 days on credit cards, student loans, auto loans, home mortgage, home equity and retail small business loans and lines of credit in FEMA-declared areas, Gray said. There will be no negative credit reporting for those customers who receive payment relief. Customers affected by the storm but who are not in a FEMA area can receive similar benefits by contacting Wells Fargo.
Also for those customers, Wells Fargo is waiving or refunding fees, including late fees and debit card over-the counter cash disbursement fees, and ATM fees for using non-Wells Fargo ATMs.
Wells Fargo is donating $1.1 million to Irma victims and encouraging customers to donate to the American Red Cross via Wells Fargo ATMs or by redeeming Go Far Rewards. Customers already have donated $1.7 million for Hurricane Harvey victims.