For the first time, FEMA invited a private sector organization -- namely BCLC -- to sit in a Joint Field Office as they coordinate the response to a major storm, in this case, Hurricane Ike.  So Ollie Davidson and I jumped on a plane on a Tuesday and went down to Austin where the JFO is headquartered.

FEMA has taken over both floors of what used to be a JC Penney's at Highland Mall, and the amount of manpower and coordination capacity was truly something.  The floors are laid out in different sections with specialists for community relations, critical infrastructure, mass care, and various other issues which are collectively known as Emergency Support Functions or ESFs.  ESF#14 is Long-Term Community Recovery, and BCLC and the Texas Association of Business were welcomed by the folks directing this function to help address business issues affecting the long-term recovery of the region.

Ollie stayed in Austin to work out the processes and procedures for our role in the JFO, and I went down to Houston where I met with Jeff Moseley, the head of the Houston Partnership.  Jeff was the head of economic development for the state of Texas, a three-term judge, and more than gracious.  From his office at the Allen Center you could see vestiges of storm damage to some of the buildings downtown, but fewer than 1% of all of the windows had been knocked out, and the vitality and growth of the city were self-evident.  The biggest continuing problem is that around 500,000 residents were still without power.  To provide some context, this is the population equivalent of New Orleans pre-Katrina, but less than 10% of the Houston metro area.   (When you are in Texas, you have to remember that everything is Texas-sized.)

Afterward, I went down to Texas City, on the outskirts of Galveston island and met with Jimmy Hayley, the head of the Texas City Chamber of Commerce and Greg Harrington, chairman of the board of the Galveston Chamber, and they were very optimistic.  Jimmy said that 90%+ of the businesses in Texas City were back up and running.  Galveston is a different story of course.

Wednesday happened to be the first day that the authorities opened up the island back to Galveston residents.  While many businesses are still officially closed and there has been extensive damage, Greg told me a number of stories that would make anyone proud to be an American.  One restaurant that had significant building damage put their tables out in the parking lot, dressed them up in white table cloths and served all of the emergency service providers free dinner last Saturday night.  There's talk that the Lone Star Bike Rally, which attracts upwards of 350,000 participants to Galveston, may actually be staged on schedule this year at the end of October.

After that, I had to go to Beaumont, where I met with the heads of the SW Louisiana, Port Arthur, Greater Orange, and Beaumont chambers.  Orange and Bridge City were hard hit -- roughly half of the Chamber's 450 businesses were still disrupted as of last Wednesday, but they are proud, bound and determined to pick up the pieces.  Although they were hit hard by Rita in 2005, last year, the region had over $10 billion in new investment, and this year they were on track to attract $17 billion.

I love the attitude of the people in the region.  They were so grateful to the emergency responders, so determined to fix up the damages, and so optimistic about the future.  They told stories of people sharing copiers and making telephones and using computers in each others offices, of folks lending a hand with power generators, debris removal and new construction issues, and helping evacuees out.   They also surfaced a number of issues you don't think about in daily life -- how to communicate when telephone service has been totally disrupted, how to find loved ones separated in the evacuation, where to find water meters and gas meters and all of the inspectors you need to determine various safety issues.

I have no doubt in my mind that the region is going to come back well.  However, this cannot be just a simple clean-up job.  We have to look at ways that we can upgrade the infrastructure, the resilience and the sustainability of the region so that future disasters have less impact.  Gustav and Ike were two of the costliest hurricanes in modern history.  This response will be a huge missed opportunity, if we don't use this chance to strengthen the underpinnings of the region's development, and reduce the cost of future disasters.  At BCLC we will do what we can to support the region's business leaders as they work toward this goal. 

From Multiple Perspectives: The Ike Response, The Corporate Citizen.  More articles:

• Hours after Ike, by Gerald McSwiggan
• Tremendous Efforts by the Galveston Chamber, Q&A with Gina Spagnola, President
• Invaluable NGO Support, Q&A with Jock Menzies, American Logistics Aid Network and Patrick Crawford, Feeding America
• Generous Giving in the Aftermath of Ike: ExxonMobil Pledges $5 Million
• Behind the Scenes at BCLC's Help Desk, By Ines Pearce