Walmart has taken a lot of heat in many quarters but various accounts including this in the Washington Post suggest it’s one of the true corporate and organizational heroes of Hurricane Katrina:
At 8 a.m. on Wednesday, as New Orleans filled with water, Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. called an emergency meeting of his top lieutenants and warned them he did not want a “measured response” to the hurricane.
“I want us to respond in a way appropriate to our size and the impact we can have,” he said, according to an executive who attended the meeting. At the time, Wal-Mart had pledged $2 million to the relief efforts. “Should it be $10 million?” Scott asked.
Hey: why wasn’t HE in charge of FEMA? And:
Over the next few days, Wal-Mart’s response to Katrina — an unrivaled $20 million in cash donations, 1,500 truckloads of free merchandise, food for 100,000 meals and the promise of a job for every one of its displaced workers — has turned the chain into an unexpected lifeline for much of the Southeast and earned it near-universal praise at a time when the company is struggling to burnish its image.
While state and federal officials have come under harsh criticism for their handling of the storm’s aftermath, Wal-Mart is being held up as a model for logistical efficiency and nimble disaster planning, which have allowed it to quickly deliver staples such as water, fuel and toilet paper to thousands of evacuees.
A personal note. Two years ago we had truly horrific fires here in San Diego County, which devasted many residential areas and our beatiful forests. Walmart got involved in relief efforts immediately.
In fact, in the aftermath of the fire, TMV in his other incarnation donated his services at a special, monster Halloween party quickly put on by Walmart for kids in one of the fire struck areas. Many of these kids had lost their homes. Walmart simply went ahead and did it ASAP — running a huge event with food, entertainment, inflatable characters, carnival games, tons of free gifts for the kids and of course Halloween candy. Local Walmart bigwigs stood behind the booths, making sure kids got plates piled high with food.
So its performance in this disaster, coming equally rapid and on a much larger scale, was not a surprise to us. MORE:
Wal-Mart has much to gain though its conspicuous largesse — it has hundreds of stores in Gulf Coast states and an image problem across the country — but even those who have criticized the company in the past are impressed.
“Wal-Mart has raised the ante for every company in the country,” said Adam Hanft, chief executive of Hanft Unlimited Inc., a New York branding and marketing firm. “This is going to change the face of corporate giving.”
Wal-Mart, in turn, has been showered with praise. Scott, Wal-Mart’s folksy chief executive and its chief defender against a chorus of critics, has appeared on “Larry King Live” to discuss the chain’s response to the storm and was singled out by former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton during a joint news conference yesterday in Houston.
It’s credit where credit is due. And a model for quick and competent crisis response.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.