Hurricane Florence started off as a tropical wave but gained enough momentum owing to the availability of ample moisture, low wind shear and other conducive environmental factors that turned it into a full-fledged tropical cyclone to kick start the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane season on a mammoth scale of devastating proportions.
Many individual residents in the affected regions underestimated the hurricane’s potential to do damage because of its low speed. What was slated to be a Category 4 storm fizzled out into a Category 2 and finally Category 1 storm before it even made its landfall at Brightsville Beach.
Nevertheless, the slow moving storm brought along with it torrential downpours and many places throughout the states of North Carolina and South Carolina saw continuously heavy showers in the range of 20 to 40 inches of rainfall.
- Nearly twenty lives were claimed and many were injured.
- Power was cut off for close to a million commercial establishments and residences.
- Damages were approximated at roughly $18 billion.
- Interstate 95 and 40, major highways in the region had to be closed down.
- North Carolina, with an inventory in excess of eight million, is the second largest hog producer in the country after IOWA. Wastes from the states’ hog industries and byproducts from electricity plants in the region posed a serious threat to the environment.
- Water waste and toxic spillage into rivers raised concerns about water contamination.
As a result of widespread inundations, even parts of the bordering state, West Virginia, such as the counties of Greenbrier, Mercer, Monroe and Summers, were on high alert in anticipation of possible flash floods.
Wilmington, a port city in New Hanover County, North Carolina, was isolated and cut off from neighboring areas due to floodwaters. People in the city couldn’t evacuate and those outside couldn’t enter to provide help because all the entry and exit roads were flooded.
A flash flood emergency was declared in Mecklenburg County. Water rescues were in operation as more than 70 roads across the county were flooded.
Some of the regions affected by flash floods were:
North Carolina
- Greensboro
- Camelot Village
- Wilmington
- Mecklenburg County
- Kinston
- Lumberton
- Charlotte
South Carolina
- Cheraw
- Charleston
- Dorchester
- Berkeley
How Hurricane Florence affected business in North and South Carolina
Many businesses in the two states suffered minor setbacks and hiccups that affected sales, revenue and operations.
- Smithfield Foods Inc. shut down its Tar Heel and Clinton facilities for two days as a preventive measure against the approaching storm. The hurricane also impacted the futures price of hogs for the month of October.
- Retailers such as C. Penney Co., Ross Stores Inc., Kohl’s Corp., Burlington Stores Inc., Macy’s Inc. and TJX Cos have a sizeable number of their outlets located in the region and were forced to close them, leading to losses in revenue and sales.
- Nucor Corp. closed operations in its steel mills in Hertford and Berkeley County. Steel production in the area was also indirectly impacted by a rise in the prices of coking coal, an important raw material. This occurred due to widespread disruption of activity in all the major ports along the coast.
- The impact on public transport and other services in the region forced Gildan Activewear Inc. to close many of its offices to protect their staff and employees from commuting inconveniences.
- New York-based pharmaceuticals manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., had to delay its supply to many important hospitals in the area.
- Cargill, one of the country’s leading beef manufacturers, had to temporarily shut down operations in its plants in South Carolina and Virginia due to disrupted activity in sea ports such as Norfolk, Baltimore and Minneapolis.
- Evacuation orders forced automobile manufacturers Daimler AG and Volvo to close down operations in their plants leading to delays in production and deadlines.
- Boeing also had to halt operations in its 787 Dreamliner manufacturing facility and other production units in the area.
- Novartis AG had to stop pharmaceuticals production at its site in Wilson, North Carolina. However, the company moved their stock of critical medications out of the region to prevent interruptions in supplies to hospitals in the region.
- Besides temporarily stalling production, Chemours Co., a fluoro products manufacturer, had to clear its factory unit in North Carolina of harmful chemicals and other toxic substances whose spillage during the floods could have lead to environmental disasters.
- DowDuPont Inc. closed operations in
- a coating materials unit in Charlotte
- a silicones factory, Greensboro
- polymer manufacturing units in Fayetteville and Kinston
- a resins factory, Cooper River
- CarMax Inc. closed its used car stores in Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Greenville and Virginia Beach.
Data Centers
IT companies find investing in North and South Carolina an attractive proposition, thanks to relatively inexpensive real estate, cheap labor, government benefits, incentives and other favorable factors. Many leading IT companies have important data centers and other crucial assets in the region.
- Apple – Data Centers in Rutherford, Cleveland and Caldwell
- com – A large scale wind farm and six availability zones
- Facebook – Two data centers in Forest City
- Google Cloud – A $1.2 billion data center in Lenoir along with other data centers in South Carolina and Virginia
- IBM – Multiple data centers and network points of presence throughout North Carolina
- Microsoft – Multiple azure data centers in Virginia
Even before Hurricane Florence reached land, disaster recovery measures were in full swing as organizations stocked up adequate supplies in anticipation of disruption to power supply and damage to transmission lines. A wide range of preemptive measures were enforced.
- Most facilities had powerful backup generators installed and tested with fuel on site and additional fuel supplies in tankers and trucks located in safe zones beyond the affected regions.
- Portable generators were also made available to support specialist staff such as electricity, HVAC and network technicians on site to fix bugs and issues.
- Cloud based solutions and cell phone modems were also implemented to ensure connectivity when disaster struck.
- Pumping equipment were installed to flush out the water inundating the premises.
- Sandbags were piled up and used as barriers at strategic places.
- Many businesses even altered working schedules and timetables, providing additional support from other locations so that the local site could cope with the effects of the hurricane better.
- Backups were taken of crucial and important data.
- Arrangements, such as buying temporary software licenses, were made to allow employees to work from home or remotely.
- Stopgap arrangements were made with vendors and suppliers.
- IT facilities and systems were stress tested for power outages and other failures.
- Organizations also stocked up on hardware supplies and additional computers.