Global Fastener News

Fragmentary News Beginning to Come in from Fastener Companies Hit by Hurricane Katrina

John Wolz

Phones in Hurricane Katrina’s path went unanswered as the fastener industry awaits information on colleagues, customers and suppliers.
“The only thing I have heard so far is that all the employees of House of Threads got out and are all right,” said Kathy Malkemes of Associated Fastener Group, a rep agency based in the Dallas area. She hasn’t heard about two other customer companies. “I am having big problems getting material shipped out of Baton Rouge,” Malkemes noted. One supplier doesn’t have phone service “but I am able to fax orders to a location in Mobile and he has a satellite of some sort that is able to send the orders over to Baton Rouge for them to be shipped out.””
Mary Chambers of Texas-based stocking rep agency Assembly Products & Sales was able to get a quote from a Fastenal in Houma, LA, “but tried without success to call the companies in Baton Rouge last week. I suspect that many of them in New Orleans are out of business.””
Georgia Foley, executive director of the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association, has talked to former STAFDA president Marc Beerman by cell phone. Beerman Precision is “only blocks away from the Superdome. I’ve also heard from Charlie Steele in Baton Rouge. I’ve tried reaching other members in the area but no luck so far.” ”
Paul Houston of Construction Bolts Inc. in Monroe, LA – which is more than a four-hour drive north from New Orleans – reported no problems with customers or suppliers and not even rain. “There are some glitches with UPS” and people displaced by the hurricane have been coming up,” Houston noted. �2005 FastenerNews.com