Emerson Teams Help Industrial Customers Recover After Natural Disasters
In the pre-dawn hours of September 13, 2008, Hurricane Ike hit the Texas Gulf Coast near Galveston and took aim at the heart of the U.S. refining and chemical industries. Hurricane Ike turned out to be the third most destructive hurricane ever to hit the United States. Many refining and chemical industry plants in this Gulf Coast area were significantly damaged and without power and telecommunications services.
Drawing on lessons learned from past hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters, Emerson Process Management was ready to help customers get back to work through its SWAT-like disaster recovery operations teams.
Within days, Emerson technicians were walking through plants operated by ExxonMobil, Firestone, E.I. DuPont and other customers to assess the damage. Emerson mobilized its disaster recovery crews from locations across the United States. Employees were brought into Texas to work virtually around the clock; other personnel were assigned to help remotely to get customers’ operations up and running as efficiently and quickly as possible.
About 130 people supporting a dozen different customer sites worked in mud and marsh grass, amid alligators, snakes and dead fish. Given that telecommunications services were down, Emerson delivered necessary cell phones and two-way radios for communications.
With no power and limited access to instruments, crews brought in all the equipment needed to operate a portable repair depot. This temporary valve repair shop on wheels consisted of an 18-wheeler filled with generators, vises, compressors, battery-powered hand tools, and self-contained water systems.
Since hotel rooms along the Texas Gulf Coast were reserved for federal disaster recovery personnel and power company workers, Emerson provided portable bunk houses for its employee volunteers from Austin, Texas, Sherman, Texas, Kansas City, Kansas and Marshalltown, Iowa, who arrived in Beaumont, Texas and worked on-site for weeks.
Emerson employees from as far away as Singapore also contributed to the disaster recovery effort, by providing support for quick-ship requests for equipment made in Asia. Within the first few weeks, millions of dollars worth of control systems, smart devices, valves, transmitters, repair kits and other equipment were sent to these sites.
Emerson crews worked 12-hour days for 3+ months to get its customers back in operation.
Hurricane Ike is an example of why Emerson is known as the single best source for disaster recovery expertise for the process manufacturing industry. With its unparalled worldwide network of certified facilities and technical specialists, Emerson can get to a customer’s site quickly, ready to go to work.
Of course, not all disasters are the result of Mother Nature. Unexpected failures, whatever the cause, can pose serious hazards with potentially devastating effects. That’s why many companies turn to Emerson for its disaster recovery services. Here’s a quick snapshot:
Damage assessment – Emerson’s team of experts arrive immediately on the scene with special skills and knowledge about products, technology, systems and services to provide a detailed assessment of all process control equipment, condition of each component, and recommended actions to bring the process back online in the most efficient way possible.
Inspection and testing – The Emerson team inspects, cleans and dries each valve and instrument, which is then tested to determine serviceability. This can involve hundreds, even thousands, of devices.
Equipment repair – Emerson technicians are the only people certified to repair Fisher valves, Rosemount instruments and DeltaV, PROVOX and RS3 control systems (all are product technologies made by Emerson). They also have extensive experience with most other manufacturers’ equipment and can repair it to fully operational condition.
Control Panel Repair and Fabrication – Emerson specializes in the design and assembly of industrial control panels. Damaged distributed control system (DCS) and programmable logic controller (PLC) control panels can be rebuilt or restored. This includes mechanical, electrical and control functions.
Equipment replacement –When repairs are not practical, Emerson can use its large global network of service centers to quickly locate replacement control systems, valves and instrumentation.
Commissioning and start-up – Technical staff are on-call to provide equipment startup services, including verification of proper installation, configuration and application implementation and verification of proper process performance.
Advanced Planning - Any business can experience a serious incident that prevents it from continuing normal operations. Although the potential causes are many and varied, one constant remains: the more you plan in advance, the less impact you will experience when the worst occurs. Emerson offers a host of advanced continuity planning options to mitigate the effects of a disaster.
When disaster strikes, customers know they can count on Emerson to organize an expert team that will get their operations back up and running as quickly as possible. With their deep industry knowledge, Emerson’s technical experts integrate seamlessly with customers’ teams, becoming an extension of the customer’s own staff.
For more information, visit
Emergency Response Services at EmersonProcess.com.
