Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.As the Missouri River's crest rises, so do the blood pressures and stress levels of employees at Omaha-Council Bluffs businesses that stand in harm's way.
Even though the worst of the flooding is likely still on its way, many businesses along the river and on Abbott Drive have taken extreme precautions to protect their businesses. Some have moved expensive equipment. Many have built sandbag fortresses or reinforced levees. And all of them have catastrophe and evacuation plans in place if Mother Nature decides to flex all of her muscles.
At Gallup, a yellow sign that employees at the company's riverside campus have used to gauge the rising Missouri River is no longer visible.
No sign is a bad sign.
By Wednesday, rain had pushed floodwaters up and over the landmark sign and ever closer to the headquarters of Gallup, the international polling firm. By midday, water sat a mere 25 feet from the campus's main building.
“It's a little too close,” said Kelly Slater, a company spokesman. “It has gotten deeper over here.”
Gallup is making preparations to execute different evacuation plans depending on how severe the flooding gets and how long employees would be forced from the facility, Slater said.
Gallup has offices in buildings in Omaha, Bellevue and Lincoln, so employees and equipment would be relocated to one of those if water begins pouring into the company's main building. In a worst-case scenario, workers could be stationed at those auxiliary facilities for an extended period of time, Slater said.
Recently, employees have been arriving to work early and staying late to build sandbag walls around the building, Slater said.
On Wednesday, Slater said most of the rising water was flowing around Gallup's offices near Abbott Drive and into the Qwest Center Omaha's parking lot.
“We're just in wait-and-see mode.”
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Next door, at Rick's Cafe Boatyard, managers also have had their eyes affixed to a reference point as the river rises: a stack of large concrete cylinders.
First, two cylinders were visible. Then 1½. Now, just one can be seen, said manager Liz Clark.
For most folks, seeing the cylinders slowly submerge would be a daunting sight. But officials at the restaurant and banquet hall are confident that scheduled events won't be affected, even when water engulfs a landing on the company's property.
“I really don't think we're going to be affected, actually. The restaurant sits very high up and it's away from the landing quite a ways,” Clark said
Rick's has a number of backup locations that it can use if flooding reaches the business, but Clark has told the 200 or so concerned customers that have called about their reservations for wedding receptions and large gatherings to keep their events on the calendar.
“We're telling everybody that we're not anticipating any problems at all.”
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Farther up Abbott Drive toward Eppley Airfield, First Data's Crown Point printing facility is on the brink of being flooded.
For the time being, it's business as usual for the 500 First Data employees who work there. Well, business as usual, if you include shifts of employees building up sandbags to help protect the building from being overtaken by water.
First Data's operation runs around the clock and churns out millions of mailings and print products each day, so if the facility floods, those operations would be hampered despite the company moving some of those functions to other company locations scattered around the Omaha metro area. In total, the Atlanta-based company employs 5,000 people in the Omaha area.
Depending on how much water is released from upriver dams, the First Data building could completely flood. That risk prompted the Atlanta-based company to move some specialized equipment and production supplies to other locations, said Nancy Etheredge, a company spokeswoman.
Additionally, generators have been installed to serve as the facility's main power supply if commercial power sources are interrupted, Etheredge said.
“We are doing all that we can to protect our employees and our operations so that we can continue to serve our customers.”
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Around the perimeter of Eppley, operators of private hangars are cautiously optimistic about their exposure to floodwaters because of the airport's all-out efforts to battle swelling groundwater and increasing pressure on levees.
“We're trying to take precautions, but it's business as usual for us here,” said Mike Wilwerding, general manager at TAC Air. “There's nothing anticipated unless something catastrophic happens.
“Yeah, we're in good shape.”
Wilwerding, however, said all of that could change in a jiffy if a levee is breached and water rushes into the airport's property.
“We do have some concern,” he conceded.
At this time, no private jets have been grounded or removed from runways because of flood worries. And Wilwerding said private College World Series charters are expected to land at TAC Air and other hangars without a hitch.
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ConAgra Foods Inc. officials are confident flooding won't be an issue for them even though the southern tip of the company's downtown campus abuts the Missouri River.
The company has pumps in place around its south parking lot and is prepared to build sandbag barriers if the river poses any more of a threat, said Teresa Paulsen, a spokeswoman for the company that has about 1,800 employees in the offices, food labs and various other buildings on the 30-acre campus.
But for now, the packaged food giant will monitor the situation and go about business as usual.
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In Council Bluffs, parking at the Ameristar and Harrah's casinos remain a fluid situation.
Literally.
The bottom floor of Ameristar's garage structure is under water and lots behind Harrah's look more like a lake than a viable parking area. During a sold-out concert at Harrah's Stir Concert Cove on Tuesday night, concertgoers were relegated to taking shuttles to the venue from the nearby Mid-America Center.
The situation isn't improving, either.
Along Harrah's entryway, pallets of filled sandbags sit, waiting to be deployed in areas of most concern. On Wednesday, the casinos and other companies along that stretch of the river — Warren Distribution and Cargill — began building up the industrial levee that protects the facilities from the river, said Christie Scott, a spokeswoman for Ameristar.
Scott said the project would take two or three days to install special four-foot barriers made by Hesco. Similar barriers were used to reinforce levees around New Orleans in 2005 between Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
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Some companies not affected so far are volunteering to help those that are.
Volunteer teams from Bailey Lauerman on Tuesday and Wednesday were at Dana College, stocking shelves with food and cleaning dormitory rooms that will be used to house residents displaced by flooding.
Some people already are living in the dorms, said Doug Parrott, an executive at Bailey Lauerman.
Others are chipping in, too.
ConAgra, Paulsen said, is donating money to the Red Cross to help with flood-relief efforts.
The Nebraska Business Development Center announced it will offer a smattering of services to flood-affected small businesses including: assistance filing insurance claims; help preparing loans to restore business operations; guidance when filing for federal recovery funds; developing marketing strategies; and working with suppliers to keep the supply chain flowing.
And at Accurate Communications, an Omaha inbound call center operator, officials want to help businesses dealing with hardships answer their phones. In a statement, Accurate said it's offering answering services, customer care, medical call assistance and order entry.
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The flooding in Omaha, Council Bluffs and western Iowa presents a peculiar situation for Doug Hutcheson, the owner of Hutcheson Engineering Products Ltd.
In the business's 25-year history, Hutcheson has never experienced a busier 30-day period. In the last month, his north Omaha company sold water pumps to Eppley Airfield, ConAgra Foods Inc., Omaha Public Power District and its Fort Calhoun nuclear plant, MidAmerican Energy and to Council Bluffs and Carter Lakes government offices.
But even though business is booming, Hutcheson isn't beaming.
“I'm hopeful that business is not good because, as business is good for me, it's bad for everybody else,” Hutcheson said Wednesday. “There's a lot of devastation going on.”
Despite his hopes, Hutcheson predicted business will remain brisk for the next three months as businesses and Midlands residents slammed by the flood pump “small lakes” from their properties.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1414, ross.boettcher@owh.com
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