STORES Magazine - July 2008 - (Page L10)

EMERGENCY RESPONSE SYSTEMS Early Warning System At Wal-Mart, everyday disaster preparedness, always BY LIZ PARKS hen “Attention, shoppers” comes over the public address system at a big-box store, most customers expect to learn about a special sale. On February 8 at the Wal-Mart supercenter in Prattville, Ala., that message preceded a tornado warning and instructions to move to the center (safest) part of the store. WAL-MART EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER Where: Bentonville, Ark., headquarters S i z e : Expanding to 10,000 sq. ft. When: Operates continuously Four divisions: planning, preparedness, operations, recovery/mitigation W Fifty-five people died and hundreds were injured in the communities where tornados struck that day, but all the shoppers and associates in that Wal-Mart – which was in the middle of one tornado’s path – were protected by store managers’ quick response to an advance weather warning system that Wal-Mart has in place throughout its global enterprise. In fact, entire communities have been helped by Wal-Mart’s emergency response system in advance of hurricanes in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, tornadoes in Missouri, Texas and Virginia and wildfires in California. That system is housed in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at the company’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. The EOC, which has its own staff meteorologist, is being expanded from 5,600 sq. ft. to approxiL10 STORES / JULY 2008 mately 10,000 sq. ft. and operates 24/7 year-round. It consists of four divisions: planning, preparedness, operations and recovery/mitigation. Everything the planning department does ultimately transfers to the emergency management preparedness division, which is responsible for training, testing exercises and awareness programs. Wal-Mart’s training focuses not only on preparing its two million global employees to cope with crises that occur in the workplace, but also with the crises that occur at home as the result of catastrophic events. Operations comes into play as WalMart begins to respond to an emergency. There are alarm and watch operations that are on guard “for emerging business-interruption issues constantly around the globe,” says Jason Jackson, Wal-Mart’s director of emergency management. The alerts triggered by watch operations give Wal-Mart “the ability to get out in front of issues immediately.” Wal-Mart uses a third-party emergency alert/emergency communications tool from New York-based SWN (Send Word Now) Communications to automate alerts so that all stores that might be affected by a fastdeveloping event like a tornado can be alerted virtually simultaneously. “Trying to alert 100 stores in an area that may be in the path of tornadoes takes too long if you rely on phone calls,” Jackson says. Wal-Mart relies heavily on technology to run its EOC, with systems ranging from global positioning softWWW.LPINFORMATION.COM http://WWW.LPINFORMATION.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - July 2008

STORES Magazine - July 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Dearth of Retail Creativity What Shoppers Think Wow, Is That a Wawa? 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Merchandising Strategy Concept2Watch Point of Sale Outsourcing Human Resources Top 100 Retailers Store Design RFID IT Operations Systems Managements LP Vantage Point Newsbeat Cover Story Emergency Response Systems Background Checks LOEB Retail Letter Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - July 2008

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