NPR's ATC: Walmart prepared for natural disasters 3 MONTHS AGO

[bobbieinok]

they had trailers loaded in various states so cabs could just hook up and go

they thought after Katrina they might have to pull in stuff from stores in Canada

THEY WERE READY.........WHERE WAS FED GOVT?

[lectrobyte]

1. Quit repeating this urban legend, or wingnuts will be wanting to outsource

FEMA to WalMart instead of Halliburton. I'm trying to be humorously sarcastic in case it isn't obvious.

[sandnsea]

3. That's exactly right

That's what this Administration wants people to believe. The truth is they counted on private corporations and discovered private corporations can't handle a crisis of this magnitude. Now that we've got government back in charge, the NG and military deployments, things are going MUCH better. Not perfect, but better.

[bobbieinok]

4. I wondered about spin 'corporations can do this; don't trust govt'

are you really sure this is an urban legend? I agree bushco wants people to think only corporations can handle things...BUT there seemed to be a real guy talking about real events

[slor]

2. They are doing a great timeline ! NOW! n/t

[jmowreader]

5. I call bullshit for three reasons

This is called staging, and there's three reasons why you wouldn't do it.

First, they don't want to tie up their trailers letting them sit loaded until a natural disaster happened. Wal-Mart doesn't have the trailers to spare--their whole logistics system revolves around drivers picking up a trailer at the DC, taking it to a store, dropping it, picking up a different trailer and taking it back to the DC where they drop it, hook to another trailer and deliver it to a store...

Second, they don't want to pay people to load trailers just in case they might need to ship supplies to a relief operation. In some years, there are no major natural disasters that require Wal-Mart's assistance in the relief operation. If 2005 was one of those years and they'd have staged all this stuff in trailers, they'd have had to pay those same people to take the stuff back off the trailers.

And third, the stuff stays in better condition in a climate-controlled DC.

Wal-Mart's distribution centers are so automated and the people so well trained, if Wal-Mart's assistance in a relief operation is needed they can have a trailer loaded and on the road in an hour or so. It makes no sense at all to just stage trailers in case they might be needed.