Crisis management during hurricane took on whole new level

BATON ROUGE, La. (10/18/05)--Crisis management, not to mention multi-tasking, took on a whole new level of meaning for Louisiana Credit Union League CEO Anne Cochran when Hurricane Katrina hit while she was in Colorado on a business trip.

Her home in Slidell was significantly damaged, her ill husband was hospitalized, and one of her sons was called to duty in the National Guard. That would be enough for anyone. But as league president, she also shouldered the responsibility for decisions after damages to the league headquarters in Harahan forced it to relocate to Baton Rouge.

Louisiana Credit Union League President/CEO Anne Cochran describes the hurricanes' impact on the league and its credit unions. (Photo provided by CUNA).

Cochran was also juggling the needs of the league's displaced employees, credit unions' needs, and the needs of their members desperately trying to find their credit union. Add to that the collapse of communications infrastructures in the sections hit by the hurricane.

"I don't know what normal is anymore, but that's OK," she told News Now, attributing her weathering of the ordeal to her Irish upbringing. "It really was our worst nightmare." But, she said, the league pulled together.

"Connie Major (league executive vice president) held the fort and was fantastic," she said. Cochran's hotel room had access to phones, e-mail, and television, and together they and other staff worked with the Baton Rouge Service Center to get members the help they needed. Because league and service center staff were practically on top of each other, the league moved to a new branch of Bayou FCU in Baton Rouge.

Cochran says the league, which is considering opening a permanent satellite office in Baton Rouge after it moves back to its Harahan headquarters, has learned several things from the experience with Katrina and Hurricane Rita a month later:

  • Shared branching saved the day for credit unions and continues to do so. Banks, too, are beginning to make arrangements to help each other in New Orleans. "But they didn't have the system in place, like credit unions already had." Small asset credit unions, through the generosity of others in the credit union system, were able to use shared branching.

  • The league had to be prepared to relocate to an operating satellite remote location. Have everything in tubs ready to pick up and go and determine how the staff will communicate, she said, adding that Nextel walkie-talkies worked the best for staff communications.

  • There will be big issues for the league and its credit unions, most notably in terms of loss of membership and survival of the affected credit unions.

  • Once it regrouped and took care of the immediate needs, the league concentrated on continuing in the direction it set forth in terms of service. Already, its training and governmental affairs divisions are functioning. And Cochran is attending a number of meetings with credit unions this week, traveling to New Orleans with Credit Union Association President Dan Mica, then on to Monroe, then Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette.

But, Cochran worries that the general public will forget Louisiana when the next disaster occurs, just as the league and credit unions and their members are beginning to rebuild.

Meanwhile, Cochran is now living with her son in Baton Rouge and just bought a bed. "I'm just lucky. I could have been homeless."

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