As Hurricane Harvey continues to devastate southeast Texas, business owners can only watch in fear as their properties are submerged in feet of flooding. When the water recedes there will be a need to rebuild and inevitably a large part of that work load will fall on the city’s many ready mix plants.
But at the moment concrete producers' biggest worry is limiting damage to the plants so when recovery efforts begin they can answer the call.
Harvey’s winds and flooding have greatly damaged Houston’s concrete production capability. Production has completely shut down and major producers such as CEMEX and Lehigh Hanson have completely evacuated their corporate offices until further notice.
“At this time, our operations in the Greater Houston Area remain closed as a result of flooding or the potential for flooding in the coming days. It is still too early to determine when operations will resume, but we are prepared to begin the recovery process as soon as conditions permit,” Lehigh Hanson Communications Director Jeff Seig said.
CEMEX, the largest producer in North America, opened a new multimillion dollar corporate office early this year, but was forced to shutter its doors for the time being. CEMEX donated $500,000 for employee and community relief efforts. CEMEX also established a fund to receive voluntary donations from its personnel worldwide to help affected colleagues. The company will match total funds contributed.
“Our top priority is the safety of our employees. We will continue to assist our colleagues and their families affected by this devastating storm,” said Fernando A. Gonzalez, CEO of CEMEX. “Our thoughts are with the people in Texas. We trust their resilience and solidarity will help them overcome this tragedy.”
While plants remained closed, Seig says that is not his company’s focus with the primary goal being safety.
Both CEMEX and Lehigh Hanson had emergency information for their employees directly linked from their homepages.
“We remain committed to keeping in touch with our employees in the impacted region to ensure they are safe and have the assistance and support they need. From what we have been able to determine, we believe that our employees in the area affected by the storm are safe and unharmed,” Seig said.
U.S. Concrete established the U.S. Concrete Hurricane Relief Fund to help ensure that employees impacted by this unprecedented storm have necessities such as food, clothing, housing (including household repairs), transportation, and medical assistance.
