Posted on 03/29/2008 6:44:19 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
I’m grateful to an article in the National Post on Friday, 28 March, by Colby Cost for bringing this item to my attention. It is about Wal-Mart, but has nothing to do with the legendary business model of that company. Or, does it?
As the article recites, shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on 29 August 2005, Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart, send a memorandum to all the regional and store managers in the region about to be hit. His message said:
“A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level. Make the best decision that you can with the information that's available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing.”
This is an incredible message. Normally, when a disaster strikes in any large organization and communications are cut off, the subordinates are expected to batten down the hatches, protect themselves and wait for instructions. Lee Scott told his people to do the exact opposite.
What model was he following? It was the military model. There are times in battle that communication is lost. The soldiers and squad leaders on the ground don’t have the option to stand still and wait it out. Lives are on the line, and therefore they must act, even on partial or inadequate information.
The article mentioned how well the US Coast Guard functioned after Katrina. With speed and precision they set up rescue, triage, and transportation to functioning medical facilities outside the zone of destruction. How well did Wal-Mart do in this disaster?
Here is what the article says about that: “In Kenner, La., an employee crashed a forklift through a warehouse door to get water for a nursing home. A Marrero, La., store served as a barracks for cops whose homes had been submerged. In Waveland, Miss., an assistant manager who could not reach her superiors had a bulldozer driven through the store to retrieve disaster necessities for community use, and broke into a locked pharmacy closet to obtain medicine for the local hospital.
“Meanwhile, Wal-Mart trucks pre-loaded with emergency supplies at regional depots were among the first on the scene wherever refugees were being gathered by officialdom. Their main challenge, in many cases, was running a gauntlet of FEMA officials who didn't want to let them through. As the president of the brutalized Jefferson Parish put it in a Sept. 4 Meet the Press interview, speaking at the height of nationwide despair over FEMA's confused response: ‘If [the U.S.] government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.’ ”
The article refers to a study of private responses to the Katrina crisis by many businesses. Steven Horwitz, an economist at St. Lawrence University in New York, noted that other “big box” companies like Home Depot and Lowe’s handed out millions of dollars in inventory, for free, to people in desperate need.
I have one, large question about this story. Why hasn’t it been reported before? Why didn’t it make the cover of Time magazine, or a story on “60 Minutes”?
The image which some “social activists” seek to apply to Wal-Mart is a large, impersonal corporation that has no interest in either the lives and welfare of its own employees, or the lives and welfare of the communities in which it locates. Of course, every time Wal-Mart opens a hiring office for an upcoming store, there are hundreds of applicants for every available job, If that fact was as widely reported as the rants of the “social activists” that image would not last very long.
But the real fight over Wal-Mart concerns unions. It is a non-union business. And unions are on the liberal, Democratic side of the political spectrum, as are about 80 percent of all reporters and editors. Now, it becomes clearer why this extraordinary story of the freedom to act that Wal-Mart gave its people, and how they used that, has not been widely reported.
Sometimes, the simple truth about a real situation can blow the invented story out of the water. And, we cannot have that, can we?
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About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He is running for the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina.
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I have one, large question about this story. Why hasn’t it been reported before? Why didn’t it make the cover of Time magazine, or a story on “60 Minutes”?
@@@@@
Because it doesn’t fit the pre-approved narrative.
Movies could/should be made about the forward-thinking and generosity of these businesses and the fantastic work of the Coast Guard.
The Live Threads on FR during the week after the storm are a fantastic resource for the most accurate, realtime timeline of events for anyone who wants to do research on the true story.
DNC media lie to the American public every day. Somehow this kind of “journalism” is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
It’s amazing how the truth eventually comes out regardless of how the left tries to restrict it.
Sad because it's true. I just googled for walmart + katrina; the first three articles were from the Washington Post, The Nation, and CNN, but in the next three pages the articles were more like blogs &c.
I’ve mixed thoughts and feelings about Walmart in general- but I can live with them;) Still- I shop there regularly.
I was immediately struck by the “military model” comparison. Completely apt and SHOULD be a model for all large organizations. All soldiers are taught and expected- to think on their feet when the situation goes FUBAR.
An old friend of mine was in charge of all VA hospitals in the southeast at the time of Katrina. Hospitals and clinics had to be evac’d in at a moments notice, from Mobile to NOLA...hundreds and hundreds of patients. He accomplished it without one injury or death- BEFORE Katrina hit. It was quite remarkable. How did he do it? The “military model”...
If the Corp opens the the Bonnet Carre spillway this year as some predict, wait for the next news flash. This one won’t involve the levees.
The Katrina situation, taken as a whole, is probably one of the best examples of the superiority of free market choice over government planning that exists in recent times.
Proving that Americans have that extraordinary gene built in--the gene that gives us the ability to rise above the problem and "handle it." Americans genuinely care about others and CAN act more noble than many others. (Example: How well we handled 500K people evacuated because of the recent fires here in San Diego--there were more volunteers than evacuees!!!)
One of the biggest problems of today's society: WE'RE (mostly) SPOILED & SOFT! ;-)
Wal-Mart is not the “fount of evil” that all leftists (and a lot of conservatives on this forum) paint them to be.
BTTT!!!!
And, what would consumer’s be paying for goods if it were not for the mega merchant stores’?????
I don’t agree with the, (made in China) aspect but, China buys many goods from America, a concept never discussed on many forums.
What do you mean? Asks a lover of New Orleans...
I recall right after the Katrina disaster that many area Walmart stores and warehouses (and other chain stores) basically opened their doors and let people take whatever they needed. There were stories of workers using forklifts to load materials and supplies into trucks to take to relief areas.
And the cash registers were closed down during this time.
Thanks for posting this, John!
We’re printing copies to take to the Wal-Mart managers in Sylva & Franklin.
Great article!
| In Wal-Mart We Trust |
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National Post (via Mark Levin) ^ | Friday, March 28, 2008 | Colby Cosh Who did the most to help victims of Hurricane Katrina? According to a new study, it was the company everyone loves to hate. |
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Similar deal here. I started shopping at Walmart about two years ago when I relocated because it was convenient. I didn’t know the town but there was a Walmart a stone’s throw away so I went there. What I found is a clean, well laid out store with low prices and aisles that are always neatly stocked. It’s just about the ideal shopping experience so long as you’re not after haute couture or mom and pop quaintness. The other thing I saw there are black people and white people and latinos and asians and blue collar guys and kids from the local university, all together in the midst of this great bounty of low priced consumer goods. Leftists should love it. If the Soviets could’ve pulled off these kinds of scenes, they would have considered their model a success. I used to work with a guy who had made it out of Cuba. He did his shopping at Walmart and considered it a kind of Heaven. I see the same thing ~ affordably priced abundance for average people. The Left should love it, but someone’s making a profit, so of course the Left hates it.
That parish president misses the point totally. It is because FEMA is the government that it can never respond like Wal-Mart!
Does this make him a 'good guy'?
I’ll bet Wal-Mart got paid back dollar for dollar for every item they “donated”.
Does anyone have a copy of their 2005 tax returns? Their accountants should be fired if they did not take advantage of this major write-off.
“John, this is like the Al Capone story-in between killing off his rivals, buying off politicians etc., he also opened up numerous soup kitchens during the depression.
Does this make him a ‘good guy’?”
Interesting, you used Al Capone on your very first FR post back in January.
“More likely from Al Capone. He got a lot of love from Chi during the Depression by setting up soup kitchens.”
Home Depot, Wal-Mart and other companies that did the right thing should do a joint commercial to show what their people did to help their communities in crisis.
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