6/26

Donny Rouse walking through his company's Denham Springs supermarket after this week's historic flooding in South Louisiana. Rouses Market is supplied by Associated Wholesale Grocers, mostly out of its Pearl River LA facility (north of New Orleans, near Slidell).  Rouse told The Shelby Report that they hope to have the store re-opened for business in eight to twelve weeks.

According to the Times-Picayune:

Seventy-eight miles of Interstate 10 remained closed Monday afternoon (Aug. 15) because of historic flooding in south Louisiana. The state Department of Transportation and Development said all eastbound and westbound lanes were closed along a 67-mile stretch between U.S. 165 at Iowa and Interstate 49 at Lafayette, as well as on an 11-mile section between Siegen Lane in Baton Rouge and Louisiana 73 at Dutchtown.

I-10 is a major coast-to-coast highway, carrying as many as 55,000 vehicles on the average day on the longer of the two closed stretches, according to state traffic counts. The closed section nearer Baton Rouge averages 117,000 vehicles per day. For long-distance motorists, the nearest east-west interstate highway is I-20 in north Louisiana -- 200 miles away. 

Flood waters also caused the closure of eastbound Interstate 12 between Airline Highway in Baton Rouge and Juban Road near Denham Springs. Westbound I-12 was closed between Airline Highway and Interstate 55 at Hammond. 

More than 280 highways were closed around the state.

Associated Grocers, C&S Wholesale Grocers, and AWG all have major distribution centers along Interstate-12.  All are located in parishes encompassed by the federal disaster declaration.  According to the Washington Post:

“I’d imagine that at least half of our employees were affected in some way. We have many of them that have basically lost everything,” said Emile Breaux, President and CEO of Associated Grocers, a major food wholesaler in Louisiana. 

Breaux had employees coming to work the day after their houses were destroyed with just the clothes on their back. They were ready to work — both for the paycheck but also because they needed to work to help the community start picking up the pieces.
For his part, Breaux said he and anyone else who didn’t flood went home and pulled everything they could out of their closets, “and started our own little garage sale of sorts in one of our conference rooms.” 

“We started renting hotel rooms,” he said, “getting them personal care and personal hygiene items.” They also started serving meals to employees and their families. The breakroom, still with air-conditioning and cable TV, began to fill with the sounds of camaraderie.

According to the Baton Rouge Business Report:

At LeBlanc’s Frais Marché, an independent supermarket supplied by AG, owner Randy LeBlanc says the lack of personnel has been his biggest challenge by far. He estimates about 50% of his employees are out, either victims of the flood or helping family members who are. 

Similarly, at Calvin’s Bocage Market, at least 20 employees were unable to come to work today. Owner Calvin Lindsly was restocking shelves, while his family members were working the checkout lines. 

So far, supermarkets that are in operation are managing to keep up with demand for many items, though not all. Water is in short supply, as are bread and chips. LeBlanc says AG has done a much better job restocking his store than have the national vendors. Also running low are paper products and cleaning supplies. 

“It’s a little unusual to be running low on dry goods but maybe people know they might not be able to get back out for a while,” LeBlanc says. “Plus a lot of dishwashers aren’t working so paper plates and paper cups are going fast.”

Making a very bad situation even worse, the Baton Rouge Food Bank's 170,000 square foot warehouse was essentially taken out by four-feet of flooding.