Hurricane Laura is due to make landfall late Wednesday night. Our primary concern is for the safety of our staff and their families. Depending upon the severity of the storm, our Houston office may be forced to close. While most of the employees have capabilities to work from home and many of their phones have been forwarded to individual’s cell phones, we have also made other preparations for prolonged power outages and communications problems.
Customers who have shipments being cleared in ports outside of the Gulf should know that Coppersmith’s systems are working from a unified mainframe in Los Angeles, so all of our offices have access to the real-time status of all our customers’ shipments throughout the country. We have also asked that our Atlanta office act as the emergency point of contact, should there be difficulty reaching our Houston personnel. Please refer to our website for office contact information.
Unfortunately, with these storms, we can tell they’re coming, but we won’t know the extent of damage, power outage areas, and recovery time until the storm makes landfall. Because the greatest amount of damage takes place on the eastern wall of the storm, a slight movement along the coast can dramatically alter the areas impacted so the full scope will remain in flux until Laura makes landfall.
We are all here to help ensure that there is minimal disruption to our customers who are shipping to ports unaffected by the pending storm. We thank you for your business and understanding during these uncertain times.
