Emerson Helps with Hurricane Harvey Recovery

A car is submerged in floodwater in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Monday, Sept. 4, 2017, near the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Mike Train, Executive President of Emerson Automation Services, takes us behind-the-scenes to describe Emerson's short-term strategy for helping those affected by Hurricane Harvey:

To Emerson’s North American Customers:

The scale of destruction from Hurricane Harvey is unprecedented, disrupting the lives of millions across Texas and Louisiana. Our thoughts and prayers go out to residents in coastal areas and river ways, as they continue to respond to this historic catastrophe and begin to prepare for recovery.

Like our customers in the region, Emerson and our affected Local Business Partners—Puffer-Sweiven, Scallon Controls, and John H. Carter—are focused on ensuring the safety and well-being of our thousands of employees and their families in the region.  We are accounting for each one, and helping to ensure that their immediate needs are being met.

While our displaced employees focus on family and the basic needs of shelter, food and clothing, other Emerson employees and business partners across North America and around the world are rapidly preparing for the immediate support our customers will need to quickly yet safely restore operations. While there are urgent needs, we recognize this requires a deep and lasting commitment over weeks and months to come. I want to share with you a few of the immediate steps we are taking:

• Our Lifecycle Services team is identifying service personnel across the United States and other countries who can immediately be redeployed to the affected areas, to aid in the recovery effort.
• Emerson and our Local Business Partners are collaborating to prepare more than 20 mobile service centers to be deployed to customer sites in the Gulf Coast region for onsite repairs to minimize downtime.
• Through our “site walk-down” capability, we have the resources and expertise ready to help customers quickly inventory assets needing replacement or repair, using well-defined work processes, project management discipline and advanced diagnostic tools to expedite this assessment and planning.
• We have directed Emerson manufacturing operations to focus increased product deliveries to the region for the Emerson product brands you trust. We are rapidly increasing inventories for measurement, analytical, flow, final control and systems products for replacement needs. The majority of our manufacturing locations in Texas remain undamaged by this natural disaster, and will be at full capacity shortly once our personnel can safely return to work to produce.
• Our senior executive team is personally engaged to ensure the full resources of Emerson and our Local Business Partners are available to respond without delay to the immediate needs of our customers.

For our North American customers not directly affected by Hurricane Harvey, we ask for your patience and support as we work with affected customers in the region to adapt product delivery priorities.  We will communicate early and often as we rebalance our supply chain in response to this emergency.

Emerson’s emergency response experience is deep, forged by recovery efforts we led with customers following similar natural disasters like hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, among others.  We have learned what is required to recover from these types of situations and how to do it quickly, yet responsibly. Our experience managing comprehensive shutdowns, turnarounds and outages, combined with the urgency of an emergency schedule, has helped customers return to production faster than they imagined possible.

We ask that customers continue to work with their primary Emerson or Local Business Partner contacts for product and service support needs. 

It’s often said that difficult times bring out the best in people.  We are seeing that now with volunteers stepping in and helping rescue and support displaced citizens throughout the Gulf Coast.  I’m confident you will find employees of Emerson and our Local Business Partners exhibiting the same can-do attitude and deep commitment to your success. As you begin to assess your action plan, rest assured our teams are ready to help you.

Sincerely,

Mike Train
Executive President
Emerson Automation Solutions