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Government can take lesson from Wal-Mart
If it gave away everything on its shelves and starting paying its army of associates better than union autoworkers, Wal-Mart still would be criticized in the mainstream media and elsewhere by those who don't understand economics or automatically despise businesses that are big and successful.
But as Fortune magazine shows in its issue focusing on how big corporations such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and FedEx relied on principles of good crisis management to get the job done before and after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, the world's biggest retailer ain't all bad and all evil.
As Fortune details in its "After Katrina" package, as soon as Katrina's winds passed, Wal-Mart -- and its equally clever, well-prepared and well-run corporate cousins -- quickly stepped over or around the confused, floundering and sluggish bodies of federal, state and local government relief agencies and sprang into action.
Wal-Mart not only implemented emergency plans six days before Katrina hit land. It knew from its in-house meteorologists that Katrina had zigged toward New Orleans 12 hours before the National Weather Service issued a similar advisory.
Wal-Mart knows from experience what things people buy before and after hurricanes pass by, and it shipped extra amounts of them by the truckload: Obvious items such as flashlights, dry ice and tarps, but also Strawberry Pop-Tarts.
Its stores also were overstocked on basics: water, shoes, prescription drugs and clothing. One manager of a storm surge-smashed Wal-Mart in Waveland, Miss., was praised by her bosses for deciding on her own to give away whatever she could salvage to battered hurricane victims in the parking lot.
Home Depot also is used to dealing with hurricanes. It had mobilized four days before Katrina hit, Fortune says. It had generators and building supplies pre-positioned to the left and right of Katrina's projected path and had 23 of 33 stores in the hurricane disaster zone open the next day.
Fortune doesn't suggest for a moment that private corporations, no matter how efficiently they are run or how well they plan for risk, have the resources to replace government relief.
But it does contrast the successes of Wal-Mart and Home Depot to the many stumbles and failings of FEMA, the Red Cross and local governments. As one local mayor gushes, "The Red Cross and FEMA need to take a masters class in logistics and mobilization from Wal-Mart."
That will never happen, of course. Governments will always act like governments, and private companies will always act like private companies, even during major disasters
