New Orleans-based WD works to put back the pieces of its business following hurricanes Rita and Katrina

By Amy Antenora, managing editor

NEW ORLEANS — While the news coverage has slowed, the efforts to rebuild the businesses, homes and normal living conditions of New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities devastated by hurricanes Rita and Katrina, has not.

Among the businesses that were temporarily shut down by the storms is Herzog’s Automotive Parts, Inc., a warehouse distributor with two locations in New Orleans. The company, which has been in business since 1971, has four warehouse locations in all – two in New Orleans, one in Birmingham, AL, and another in Mobile, AL. Herzog’s territory covers half of Louisiana, half of Mississippi, all of Alabama and also ships to Panama City, FL. Herzog’s is an IAPA member of the Automotive Distribution Network.

The company lost more than $1 million in parts at its two New Orleans locations during the storms, and sustained damages to the two buildings totaling $280,000. The roof blew off of its headquarters location, which then flooded, while the second New Orleans location sustained a leaking roof.

While the storms rendered Herzog’s two Louisiana locations temporarily unusable, the company’s two Alabama locations, which were not harmed in the storms, have become its saving grace.

“Now, we deliver everything from Mobile to the customers that are outside of New Orleans. We’re having them deliver it over here at night, then we transfer it to five trucks and deliver it to the customers that are around New Orleans and Mississippi,” said Conway Herzog Jr., president of Herzog’s Automotive. “We’ve been shipping more parts into Mobile, because that is where they are shipping back to us, to New Orleans. We had no way of receiving anything in New Orleans anyway because no freight lines were working.”

Another saving grace for Herzog’s was the ability to transfer its computer files to Activant’s offices in Austin, TX, allowing the company to keep up on important paperwork.

“We had the server in New Orleans but we couldn’t service out of the two [New Orleans] warehouses, so Activant transferred it to Austin, where we’re using their computers,” said Herzog. “That has kept us up to date with receivables and everything else. We took the discs from our computers and shipped them to Austin, so it would allow us to continue to function in Mobile and Birmingham.”

Luckily, said, Conway Herzog, Jr., not one of his employees was injured in the storms. His employees are all fine, but, the trouble is, nearly all of them are still out of state, unable to return.

“All 74 of our employees were gone for 10 weeks,” he said. “We haven’t gotten them all back yet. Some are in Houston, TX, some are in Dallas, TX, some are in Atlanta, Lafayette, Baubridge. We’ve even got one in New York City.”

For a man who has been in the automotive parts business for more than half a century, this experience was an unusual first.

“I’ve been in the parts business for 56 years and I have never in my entire life undergone what I’ve gone through here,” said Herzog.

Herzog said the company expects to reopen the two New Orleans warehouses in about three weeks, just around the start of the New Year.

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