97_How Folgers Reopened 22 Days After Hurricane Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, more than half of Procter & Gamble's coffee production was concentrated in the region. P&G had hurricane plans. It had shutdown procedures. It had generators, crisis teams, backup systems, and decades of experience preparing for storms. And then Katrina exceeded the plan. Communications collapsed. Employees were scattered across multiple states. Roads became inaccessible. Utilities disappeared. Some shutdown procedures weren't completed. It ultimately took P&G 21 days just to account for every employee. Yet on September 20, 2005—22 days after Katrina made Louisiana landfall—a Folgers production line in New Orleans was running again.

In this episode of DisasterClass, Jason Perez breaks down what P&G did before, during, and after Katrina—and why this case is about much more than coffee. We explore business continuity, organizational resilience, employee recovery, critical dependencies, alternate production, emergency decision triggers, and one of the most important lessons in preparedness: Preparedness doesn't give you certainty. It gives you options.

Learn more about DisasterClass and Instinct Ready Emergency Management at InstinctReady.com.

Topics: Hurricane Katrina, Folgers, Procter & Gamble, business continuity, disaster recovery, emergency management, organizational resilience, preparedness, supply-chain resilience and community recovery.

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00:00 The Strategic Coffee Reserve
01:24 Why Folgers Was Vulnerable
02:50 A Plan Is Not a Preparedness Program
03:29 Katrina Enters the Gulf
04:23 Preparedness Triggers
05:36 When Katrina Exceeded the Plan
06:54 P&G Loses Track of Its Employees
07:50 21 Days to Account for Everyone
08:52 The Coffee Sludge Problem
10:47 Getting Back Into the Plant
12:14 Replacing the Infrastructure
13:43 The Fire Protection Problem
15:09 The Facility Is Not the Mission
16:50 Employees Were Disaster Survivors Too
18:10 Helping Employees Recover
19:15 “Of Course P&G Could Do This”
20:44 Preparedness Scales
21:19 Businesses Don't Recover Alone
22:16 215,000 Jobs Lost
23:34 22 Days After Katrina
24:14 Why Folgers Could Reopen
25:32 Perfect Preparedness Doesn't Exist
26:12 Preparedness Buys Options
26:59 The Strategic Coffee Reserve Returns
28:15 The Final Lesson
28:35 Outro