Local Firms Cope with Losses, But Many Still Aid Recovery
For most firms, the first mission was to locate employees and assess their situation. San Francisco-based URS Corp., which says it is the largest engineer in the Gulf region with more than 700 employees, including 500 in New Orleans and suburb Metairie alone. It spent 10 days "trying to find everyone," says Senior Vice President Vincent Provenza, a city native whose own elderly relatives waited five days for rescue. With phones and e-mail down, URS resorted to placing ads in local newspapers.
URS has crammed many displaced employees into its Baton Rouge office, which grew 50% overnight, Provenza says. He believes the Metairie office will be operational by early October. "Out of 500 employees, only one asked to be transferred out of state," he says.