After Hurricane Sandy, Businesses Try to Restore Service

The following is an excerpt from an article in:


The New York Times
Wednesday, October 31, 2012

After Hurricane Sandy, Businesses Try to Restore Service

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

For John Selldorff, the best news of the day was that his employees were safe and the power was back on at his company’s factory in Fairfield, N.J. But all around the plant, electricity and phone service were still out — and the manager responsible for that part of the business couldn’t get out of his driveway because of a fallen tree.

In fits and starts, businesses across a broad swath of the East Coast struggled to recover on Tuesday from Hurricane Sandy, even as executives conceded that it would be days, at least, before things returned to normal.

Manufacturers like Mr. Selldorff’s company, Legrand, a maker of electrical equipment, were among the hardest hit, with normal production not expected to resume in Fairfield until early next week.

In New York City, banks and other financial services firms predicted that they would be mostly back on their feet when financial markets reopened Wednesday and customers began to venture out to local branches.

JPMorgan Chase’s headquarters on Park Avenue and its principal trading floors a few blocks north on Madison Avenue are set to reopen Wednesday, as are at least 100 hub bank branches in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that were stocked with extra cash before the storm.

“I think power in New York City will be a challenge,” said Frank J. Bisignano, co-chief operating officer of JPMorgan Chase. “We’re not talking about weeks, but we are talking about more than a day.”

For many companies, as for individuals, the big question mark was when power providers and other utilities would be functioning reliably again.

More than five million households in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were without power Tuesday afternoon, as utilities worked to repair downed lines.

Like the power companies, Verizon Communications, the largest wireline phone provider in New York, was hit hard.

On Monday night, the company posted a photo of the first floor of its office at 140 West Street in Lower Manhattan, which had been flooded with three feet of water. Bill Kula, a spokesman, said the storm surge from the hurricane flooded Verizon’s central offices in Lower Manhattan, Queens and Long Island, causing power failures.

In some cases, even its backup power systems failed, leading to the loss of voice, Internet and television services in those areas.

Mr. Kula said the company would have to work with the power companies to pump water out from underground and dry off equipment. He added that many Verizon employees were working from home or from other offices, and that many workers from elsewhere had been rushed to New York to help with the restoration efforts.

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