Content about Natural Disaster

NEW YORK — Manufacturers of laundry machinery, reusable textiles, and laundry chemicals encountered below-average attendance at the annual International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show (IHMRS) here Nov. 10-13, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which had battered the East Coast Oct. 29.

But the dark clouds carried within them a silver lining: Many exhibitors suggested the storm damage to laundries may drive demand for replacement machinery, textiles and chemicals well into 2013.

“Some laundries were able to function with generators, but other laundries were completely devastated,” says John Smith, regional sales manager for Speed Queen. “In the hospitality industry, it’s still too early to make an accurate assessment of the damages to laundries. But equipment replacement orders may lag into the spring. This storm could have an ongoing effect into the next year.”

He described floor traffic at the show as “slower than years past” and attributed the decline to the storm’s after-effects.

Total trade attendance at the show this year was unchanged from 2011 at 23,953. But the number of industry buyers totaled 15,082, down from 17,955 in 2011, according to Melissa Gray, a spokeswoman for the show’s management. “The hurricane definitely had an impact,” she adds.

However, among the hotel owners and operators who attended the show, there was strong interest in increasing efficiency in laundry operations to help hotels and motels become more profitable by reducing energy costs, according to Smith. For example, hotels can increase energy efficiency by reducing gas usage, beginning in the wash process. Using a washer-extractor equipped with a 200 G-force extraction speed can ensure optimal water removal from linens, which leads to reduced drying times, according to Smith. In addition, using a tumble dryer equipped to prevent over-drying further decreases gas costs.

Hotel owners and operators demonstrated strong interest in laundry controls capable of providing management with reports on productivity, according to Bill Brooks, North American sales manager for UniMac. The first day of the show produced little floor traffic, according to Brooks. But then the company experienced rising interest from small, independent hotel owners and representatives of larger chains, who are increasingly cost-conscious.

“Owners and operators understand that if you can measure your consumption, you can improve your utility, chemical and labor costs,” says Brooks.

He predicted that Hurricane Sandy will have “a big impact” on equipment replacement orders from hotels in 2013, because many laundries on the East Coast were flooded with salt water. Many of those laundries were located on lower floors or in basements, he noted.

“When hotels re-open for business, one of the first things they need is clean laundry,” says Brooks. “They have to do laundry, whether they salvage their equipment or replace it.”

Pellerin Milnor Corp., which shared a booth with Chicago Dryer Co., enjoyed “quality traffic” and generated “strong leads” at the show, according to John Rasimas, regional sales manager for Milnor.

Milnor exhibited a washer-extractor and washer, both with 60-pound capacities, while Chicago® exhibited its new maximum-speed version of its Air Chicago Express high-production small-piece folder. The new folder featuring a continuously running high-speed conveyor is designed to provide faster throughput in a narrower footprint.

“The first day of the show, Sunday, was very slow, but Monday produced some quality leads for us,” says Steve Hietpas, national sales manager for Maytag Commercial Laundry. “There was good interest from owner-operators of smaller hotel facilities of 100 rooms or less, both from the East Coast and the Caribbean.”

Cuddledown, a manufacturer of institutional bedding, pillows and comforters, came to the show “expecting it to be dead – the worst ever – because of Hurricane Sandy,” according to Ryan Scott, a hospitality sales associate for the Portland, Maine, company. “But it turned out to be much better than expected. We were very pleased, because hospitality represents the fastest-growing segment of our business these days.”

Greg Eubanks, group vice president of Hospitality Sales and Marketing for Standard Textile, echoed that experience. “We expected the show to be really slow,” he says. “But it’s turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It was much better than expected.”

Standard Textile exhibited its Todd-Avery Lenahan Collection of sheets, which are now in use in more than 40 J.W. Marriott hotel properties worldwide, according to Eubanks. The microfilament interior of the sheets provides durability, while the cotton surface provides comfort. The sheets are laundered with Tide products and delivered clean, fresh and ready-to-use out of the box.

Cintas Corp. teamed with fashion designer Jay Godfrey to present its Fashionable New Apparel Collection at the show, according to Dan Ambrosio, vice president of Global Lodging and Cruise for Cintas. The purpose of the partnership was to create a new line of stylish, distinctive and durable suiting for hotels.

Godfrey worked in collaboration with Cintas to create a distinctively contemporary black suiting collection for men and women. The collection consists of slim-fitting silhouettes with narrow lapels, high-notch collars, shell buttons wrapped in stainless steel and signature jacquard dot-lining with magenta piping.

W Hotels Worldwide debuted the new wardrobe in 28 North American properties and plans to expand it globally. Although the collection is now exclusive to W Hotels, it will become available to all hospitality organizations in early 2013, according to Ambrosio.

The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) exhibited to demonstrate how the services of TRSA members can reduce the carbon footprint and increase the profitability of hotel, motel and restaurant operations.

The association emphasized its new Clean Green certification, which provides third-party verification that the linens, napkins, tablecloths, garments and other reusable textiles obtained from TRSA-certified members are laundered in an environmentally friendly manner.

In meetings with textile services customers at the show, TRSA gathered market data to help drive future programming. For instance, attendees were asked for feedback on their experiences with contracting for linen services. Many smaller hotel and motel operators appeared to be unfamiliar with the outsourcing option, according to TRSA, and were directed to the association’s website to find a textile services provider.

Proctor & Gamble, the maker of Tide, had a busy second day at the show and enjoyed strong interest in its color-safe products, according to Greg Elmore, an account executive for the company.

Ecolab generated interest with its Aquanomic laundry products, designed for low-temperature washing to achieve energy savings of 30-40%, says Bob Makely, associate district manager.

The next edition of the IHMRS will convene again in New York in November 2013.

TEXTILES: TOM LANGDON, ENCOMPASS GROUP, MCDONOUGH, GA.

The topic this month is intended for laundries based here in the States, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to share how this issue is of continuous concern for producers of the products these laundries process.

Power outages are a constant problem for textile vendors in India and Pakistan. This is due mostly to internal infrastructure problems that have no short-term fix. Both the Indian and Pakistan governments impose rolling blackouts to cope with increasing demands for energy. It is a balancing act between residential and industrial consumption needs, and the problem is magnified in the winter.

Earlier this year in Faisalabad, Pakistan, I toured a factory where patient gown fabric is printed in the dark because there was no power available to turn on the lights. Most of the larger factories have installed auxiliary power generation, either diesel-powered generators or coal-fired boilers.

Now back to the States. As our company is a supplier of reusable textiles, I inquired how we would handle a situation like this. We have a plan, the Emergency Response Process, available to our customers that can be enacted in an emergency. The plan allows us to provide additional product in an expedited manner to assist the customer/laundry in meeting their service requirements.

I interviewed several large laundry customers on how they prepare for short- and long-term power disruptions. The responses ranged from “we have no contingency plan” to a fully documented detailed plan for addressing these situations.

The typical detailed plan included an introduction that described why the plan was created, and it contained a list of laundry contacts that could provide backup processing options. A list of customer contacts was included to help facilitate communications in advising of the situation and to employ linen conservation if needed. The contingency plan clearly outlines emergency action plans and preparations for inclement weather. Some plans lay out step-by-step what is to happen before, during and after a storm.

It is a good idea to base your plan on the cause of the interruption. If it is equipment or internally related, you probably have more options on maintaining your service level. If the interruption is weather-related, it could mean that your options locally would be more limited, and you might have to tap into resources outside the affected area. This could lead to trucking soiled linen to a distant backup processor and require expedited logistics.

Depending on your situation, having additional linen on hand or quick access to your supplier, as well as access to a power generator, will help you weather a storm.

MEMBER AT LARGE: DOUGLAS STORY, SWISHER HYGIENE

Three options are available to the average laundry. First is a backup generator capable of generating enough power to keep operations going until power restored. Many of our hospital and governmental operations have such systems in place to support operations during times of disaster. If the power goes down, the backup system kicks in until power is restored.

The strengths of this option include an immediate solution to power loss; it is always available; and it is totally under your control. The weaknesses are that the system is expensive to set up; the fuel and tank system needs to be maintained; it has a finite life span (depending on the fuel needed to run the system); it needs to be evaluated and periodically tested to keep it operational; and the system can be damaged in the same disaster that shuts down operations.

Another option is having support or disaster agreements in place with other laundry operations that are in your region but far enough away that it’s unlikely both facilities will be knocked out at the same time. Many operations knocked out by Hurricane Hugo in Charleston, S.C., and by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were forced to ship product for processing as far north as Richmond and Atlanta, respectively.

The agreements are generally reciprocal since no one knows which plant might suffer a natural or “man-made” disaster that would shut down business for any length of time. The strengths of such agreements are that they are relatively easy to develop and negotiate, and they have a low cost. Weaknesses include a potential that the backup facility will suffer the same fate; there are logistics and delivery issues; they can be expensive when the trigger is pulled, but cost is rarely the issue; the agreement can be dissolved or lost at an inopportune time; and the program may no longer be under your control when needed.

The third option is that, for a short term, your plant may have a sufficient par level of linen on hand to cover your customer base while power is off. This would, however, be only enough to last for a short term—hours or a few days at most. The strengths of this option are the ease in which it can be set up and that it keeps your service operating and employees working. Weaknesses include the expense; the inventory and space needs; and that there is a short-term, finite life span on this action—when the linen is gone, the plant is down.

For a longer-term solution, blend all three contingencies for the best strategy. Again, strengths and weaknesses must be evaluated, and I’ve only touched on a few of them here. There will be unique issues with each strategy depending on size of your plant, geography and distribution of your customer base, and the “depth” and intensity of the disaster your plant is facing.

Check back on Tuesday for Part 3!

Click here for Part 1!

ATLANTA — With spring tornado season having arrived, Angelica Corp. is once again giving back to local communities by donating linens, blankets and towels to disaster victims.

Medical linen services provider Angelica most recently donated to the victims of January’s Trussville, Ala., tornado. That storm system ripped through the Birmingham area with wind speeds of roughly 150 miles per hour, killing two, injuring hundreds, and destroying more than 200 homes.

Angelica has also partnered with relief efforts in Alabama to provide linens to the survivors of the April 2011 storm system that devastated much of Alabama and Georgia. The company’s plants in Rockmart and Ooltewah donated thermal blankets, towels, washcloths, sheets and pillowcases to the disaster relief effort.

“Clean sheets and towels are so easy to take for granted, but for disaster survivors, those simple comforts are a step toward normal after their world’s been torn apart,” notes Aly Merritt, Angelica’s marketing manager. “We feel it’s only right that we do our part to help comfort this community after these horrifying storms.”

The donations were made in partnership with Carl Black Automotive Group, which coordinated with local relief efforts and provided trucks and drivers to deliver the linens to the recipients.

JOPLIN, Mo. — The Sisters of Mercy have made a commitment to spend as much as $543 million on a new state-of-the-art hospital—slated to open in 2014—to replace St. John’s Regional Medical Center, which was destroyed by an EF-5 tornado.

The May 22 tornado, which packed winds of up to 198 miles per hour, killed five patients and one visitor at the 367-bed hospital. The victims were among a total of 154 people killed by the severe weather in this southwestern Missouri city of 50,000 people.

The late-afternoon tornado made a direct hit on St. John’s and then appeared to stall over the hospital for a minute or more, according to emergency management personnel. It tore off portions of the hospital’s roof and peeled off entire sections of its façade.

Walls in the modern nine-story building were knocked 10 feet out of place; windows were blown out and rooms and corridors strewn with broken glass, fragments of concrete, and ceiling tiles. Virtually every patient and visitor suffered cuts from flying broken glass. Medical records and X-rays were sucked up by the tornado and dumped two counties away.

On the morning after the storm, the hospital—one of Joplin’s tallest buildings—appeared bombed out.

“The hospital was completely devastated,” says Jeff Hamilton, emergency management coordinator for the Sisters of Mercy Health System, which operates 28 hospitals and more than 200 outpatient facilities in the Midwest. “The tornado twisted the building 4^1/2 inches off its foundation. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it in my life.”

Employees in linen services escaped injury and death, according to Marilyn Endicott, director of materials management, which includes linen services. Linen services distributes clean linen provided by Healthcare Linen Specialists, a commercial service in Joplin.

“It’s miraculous that no one in linen services was killed or injured,” says Endicott, who credits the health system’s emergency evacuation plan, dubbed Condition Gray, with saving lives and sparing injury to the employees.

Remarkably, the only major loss involved damage to linen inventory, according to Endicott.

By the morning after the tornado struck, the hospital, which is a major trauma care center in the area, had moved all its patients to other facilities, says Cora Scott, a spokeswoman for the hospital.

Hospital staff worked all night caring for patients. The most critical patients were taken to Freeman Health System hospital, about two miles east. Patients who were able to walk were taken to Memorial Hall, a community building in Joplin, where a makeshift clinic was set up. Still others were taken to a Catholic high school, at least temporarily.

St. John’s Regional Medical Center set up as a Mobile Surgical Hospital near the ruins of the hospital and received linen twice daily from Healthcare Linen Specialists. Under a talent-sharing program, employees of linen services did not lose their jobs; they were dispersed to work at other hospitals in the area, as needed.

Tomorrow: The twister cut a swath of damage nearly a mile wide and four miles long…

ROANOKE, Va. — Much has been said about having backup plans in case of disasters. The recent storms in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia have brought fresh attention to the subject. Here are some valuable lessons learned during these violent spring storms.

Does your laundry have a weather radio to warn you of approaching storms? Having time to prepare is essential in avoiding injuries. These particular storms moved extremely fast and often happened without a lot of warning. The situation quickly moved from a weather advisory to a weather warning to the actual storm.

Do your employees know where to go in case of a violent storm? Establish severe-weather shelters within your place of business and train all employees about what to do in case of a weather emergency. Quick thinking on the part of a home-improvement store manager saved the lives of his customers and his employees. We all want to believe it will never happen to us, but being prepared will help us get through the storm if it does happen.

Northern Alabama was without power from a Wednesday afternoon until Sunday night, and the area affected by this power outage was extremely large. Debris blocked major roads. Having no power, gas stations were closed. As a result of the storms, the need for linen in hospitals and hotels increased dramatically. Is your organization prepared to function under these circumstances?

Does your laundry have a backup generator? Is it large enough to allow you to run your entire laundry? When a large region like northern Alabama, with many key defense industries, is without power, it would be difficult to obtain a portable generator to run your laundry. Further complicating the problem would be the number of roads rendered impassable due to debris.

Another problem caused by the lack of power was the loss of many land-based and cellular phones. A number of cellular towers were destroyed. If you are unable to contact your employees by phone, how will they know when to return to work?

Having the assurance of a backup generator as part of your facility and established plans to operate your facility immediately after a disaster will aid your employees in understanding their role and responsibilities.

The lack of fuel for trucks and employees’ cars is an unexpected problem. I must admit that I had not taken this into consideration as part of my disaster-preparedness plan. Certainly, having a leasing company with its own pumps and backup generator would be one way to prepare for this occurrence. Knowing ahead of time which fuel sources would be available in case of a power outage would also be helpful.

Parts of northern Alabama had a dusk-till-dawn curfew, which limited the hours a laundry or business could operate. This would cause havoc to a plan that requires a laundry to extend its operational hours due to an undersized generator.

Trucks that were clearly identified as essential service vehicles made the delivery of linen easier, as many roads were closed except for emergency or essential service vehicles.

I am confident that there are additional lessons to be learned from the violent storms that struck in April but I could only touch on some of the key issues. I certainly hope that we will not need to put too many of these lessons to the test in the near future.

“What planning and training must a laundry manager or textile rental operator coordinate to prepare his/her employees to react safely and swiftly during a crisis in the facility, such as a fire or other life-threatening event?”

Hotel/Motel/Resort Laundry: Phil Jones, Sheraton Vistana Resort, Orlando, Fla.

WASHINGTON — Natural-gas working inventories (underground storage quantity) at the end of October are about the same as last year’s record-setting level, resulting in a decline in prices for the last two months, according to the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) short-term energy outlook.

Mild weather, high production and the absence of significant hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico also contributed to the large inventory build.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Gaylord Opryland Resort is taking guest reservations for a Nov. 15 reopening, just six months after massive springtime flooding from the adjacent Cumberland River left the hotel, the legendary Grand Ole Opry and the company’s other area facilities severely damaged.

As of mid-September, clean-up and remediation work had been completed and construction was under way, according to Pete Weien, senior vice president and general manager, who posted an update on the resort’s website.

HOUSTON — In an effort to further reduce its carbon footprint, Hilton Americas-Houston, the city’s largest hotel and first Green Seal-certified hotel in Texas, is now even greener following the installation of an AquaRecycle water-recycling system in its on-premise laundry.

This year’s contributors introduce themselves, describe their operations, identify challenges and list their accomplishments for 2009.

Textiles: Elizabeth Easter, Ph.D., University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.

DES PLAINES, Ill. — Hurricane. Tornado. Fire. Flash flood.

Should your laundry encounter any of these emergency scenarios, your first instinct may be to get things back up and running as soon as possible. But the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) warns that reopening hastily can expose you and your workers to potential dangers.

NEW ORLEANS — I have visited New Orleans on several occasions, but this is the first time that I’ve seen Christmas decorations, or for that matter, Santa Claus marching in a jazz funeral. This is also the first time that I encountered weather here that wasn’t as warm as the Cajun cuisine.