Storm Hits Home for Wal-Mart Response Unit (Touchpoints by Andrew Jensen)

At Wal-Mart’s emergency management department, severe weather events are normally monitored through an array of high-tech systems and trained meteorologists.

For the ice storm that shredded the Northwest Arkansas landscape to close out January, all they had to do was step outside.

Wal-Mart’s emergency management department exists not only to ensure rapid distribution of high-demand goods to affected areas, but also to coordinate its responses with local governments.

In this case, coordinating relief efforts hit home.

“It did add a twist to what we normally do here,” said senior operations manager Bryan Koon. “We were not only dealing with 102 affected stores and clubs, everyone at the home office had trouble getting to work. We were dealing with a situation that requires a large number of associates to manage and we had schools without power and roads that were impassable in some places.

“We had some outstanding examples of those who worked beyond their normal capacity, worked double shifts and shuttled associates to and from work. There was a tremendous amount of people stepping up.”

Wal-Mart has honed its response efforts over the past few years, especially with the rapid succession of hurricanes last fall led by category 3 storms Gustav and Ike.

Koon said managing an ice storm presents its own set of challenges.

“Ice storms are hard to predict,” Koon said. “At this point, it’s easier to predict hurricanes. Everyone knows what that cone of air means and they start preparing.

“With an ice storm, the public has a harder time understanding the severity of the storm. You don’t see the massive shopping ahead of time.”

The challenges go beyond predicting the actual storm to predicting the aftermath, Koon said. Wind, storm surges and rainfall in the affected areas can be forecast following a hurricane.

The impact of an ice storm can vary dramatically from city to city or county to county.

“A quarter-inch of ice versus a half-inch of ice can be the difference between power lines falling,” Koon said.

Wal-Mart has donated a number of truckloads of water to affected areas in Arkansas, Kentucky and Missouri and individual store managers also have budgets to supply needs of local governments.

The ice storm didn’t appear to dent Wal-Mart’s January sales figures, despite closing more than 100 stores including 38 in Arkansas.

After reporting disappointing December sales growth of 1.7 percent at comparable stores, Wal-Mart cited the closure of 40 stores during the height of holiday shopping as one reason it missed its previous estimates of growth between 2 percent and 4 percent.

Wal-Mart ended its fiscal year with a 2.1 percent improvement in same-store sales, beating its December estimate of flat to 2 percent growth.

For the 52 weeks ended, Wal-Mart posted gains of 2.7 percent at namesake stores and 3.1 percent at Sam’s Clubs.

After a record $375 billion in revenue in its previous fiscal year, Wal-Mart announced it expects to report total net sales for the year ended of $401 billion.

After being battered by global economic woes and currency exchange rates caused by a strengthening dollar, International Division numbers rebounded.

Currency rate adjusted sales were up 11 percent internationally, with an 18.3 percentage point impact that led to an overall decline of 7.3 percent.