Talk to anyone who worked in New Orleans or the surroundingareas after Hurricane Katrina about their experiences and thereaction from these first-responders is immediate and emotional.From insurance adjusters and restoration contractors to vendors andgovernment responders, their memories of the weeks and months spentalong the Gulf Coast are vivid and frequently painful.

Katrina caused $96-$125 billion in property damage, of whichonly $40-$66 billion were covered losses. The massive stormdestroyed an estimated 300,000 homes, impacted oil production,Louisiana's sugar cane crops and chemical plants, and decimated thetourism industry along the Gulf.

Ten years later, residents show their resiliency as theycontinue to rebuild the city and its infrastructure. Numerouslessons were learned from Katrina that have been helped insurersand other first responders better prepare for other catastrophes.Some may seem obvious and others demonstrate just how much haschanged in the past decade.

Be prepared. This includes having a catastropheplan in place, trained manpower on the ground, relationships withvendors and suppliers, being able to work remotely in the direst ofcircumstances, and planning for the worst possible conditions.

“Professionally speaking, we learned that the adjuster intendingto work a major event like Katrina needs to not only have thequalifications, work ethic, and temperament to do the job undersome rather extreme conditions, he or she also needs to preparewell in advance of the first storm making landfall by confirmingthat all of his or her proper state adjusting licenses and clientcertifications are in good standing,” said Stephen Brown, presidentof BCMG-Brown Claims Management Group in Baton Rouge, La.

“The adjuster also needs to be fluent in the specific estimatingplatform and electronic reporting system or CMS that will beutilized by the clients from whom claim assignments are desired. Welearned from Katrina that even the most experienced and qualifiedproperty adjusters out there are for all intents and purposesuseless to us if they have not completed these requisites and areready to receive claims,” he added.

Floyd Sibley, assistant vice president of claims for the GrayInsurance Company in Metairie, La. agrees. He says the mostimportant lesson his company learned “was that it was veryimportant to have a catastrophe plan in place prior to an event andthen carry it out during the time period leading up to the eventand afterwards.”

BELFOR Property Restoration had 3,000 workers on site for sixmonths following Katrina, including 2,000 just at Tulane Universitybecause the school had to open for the spring semester.

“Any of the obstacles that we normally encountered on acatastrophe were greatly amplified in difficulty and recovery timewith Katrina,” explained Rusty Amarante, director of operations forBELFOR. “The availability of the most common items that wedesperately needed like food, water and gas took much longer to getand things didn't improve for weeks. We look at things differentlynow and anticipate the worse. With the logistics and fundamentalsof transportation, we anticipate longer recovery times rather thanshorter.”

Amarante also advises that commercial insurers developrelationships with their agents, claims professionals, riskmanagers and contractors well ahead of the catastrophe. “In a majorevent like Katrina, if you don't have a pre-arrangement withsomeone, you're going to the bottom of the list.”

Insurers know that planning for these events requiresflexibility and preparation for staff who will be in the disasterzone. This includes “accounting for everything staff may need suchas housing, fuel, food, centralized locations for staff to meet orconduct training, and overall support to deal with the day-to-dayissues that come up during the claims handling process,” explainsRod Harden, head of catastrophe claims for Farmers Insurance.

Have a Plan C for communications. Dale Jones,president of Central Claims, LLC in Metairie describes thedifficulties his team had communicating after the storm hit. Theirtelephone carrier had promised that their phone and computer lineswould be rerouted to another location if a storm should directlystrike the New Orleans area. Unfortunately, the calls had to gothrough switches in New Orleans, which were under water. They lostall communications for two weeks.

Jones says they had also planned for a satellite signal from anearby building, which would have given them telephone and computerservice at their home office, but the satellite was damaged andthat communication failed as well. Fortunately, some smallercellular phone companies came in and erected temporary towers andJones was able to purchase cell phones for those carriers andrestore communications for his team. “The newest change we have inplace today is we can now work from anywhere by simply accessingthe Internet with our laptops as long as you can find an internetsignal.”

Bill Schulenberg with Apple Adjusters, Inc. in Baton Rougeexplains, “Many adjusters showed up to Katrina with one laptop andstruggled when their computers or technology failed. Always havemultiple redundancies for all of your equipment.”

Keep up with technology. Schulenberg says it'simportant for adjusters to stay current and trained with claimstechnology. “Do it now, not during the storm,” he advises. “Claimstechnology has fundamentally improved in the 10 years sinceKatrina. Thus, many of the problems we faced are no longer issues.For example, cloud technology did not exist at the time. Thelesson, however, is that one should stay current with today'stechnology and not be afraid to use it to improve your workproduct.”

Technology will also make it easier for adjusters to be directlylinked in with carriers or insurance companies. “By accessing theInternet from any location and having this linkup with your client,losses are able to be directly received and forwarded to ouradjusters by zip code location,” explains Jones. This expedites theadjusters' ability to contact insureds, provide guidance and makeappointments.

Plan to work remotely. A large catastrophe canimpact the power grid, communications and internet access for anentire area. When a company's home office is impacted, “You must beable to operate from a satellite office for up to 120 days or aslong as required,” stresses Jones. “When Katrina struck, the entirepower grid of Mississippi and most of Louisiana were directlyaffected.”

The cloud and mobile hotspots can allow adjusters to accessfiles from anywhere now. Using mobile technology also allows lossesto be documented quickly and the files to be easily shared with allparties involved.

Work smart and safe. Adjusters, restorationfirms, utility workers and other early responders are frequently inareas with curfews, looters and police departments whose resourcesare severely strained. “Adjuster safety is never so challenged asduring and after a catastrophic event,” says Peter Crosa, theprincipal of Peter J. Crosa & Co., and president-elect of theNational Association of Independent Insurance Adjusters. “There aremany examples of assaults on adjusters related to civil unrestoccurring immediately after a catastrophe. Adjusters do well tooperate in teams and to avoid crowds of people where a gangmentality is obvious.”

Take care of yourself and your people. “To behonest, some of the best lessons that we learned from Katrinainvolved how we now prepare our claims response team from anindividual personal needs perspective…housing, food and water, autofuel availability, cell phone and internet connectivity, and thelike,” says Brown. “Prior to Katrina, these concerns were primarilyleft to the province of the individual adjusters. Since Katrina, weas a firm take much more of a proactive role in assisting theclaims response team members, for example, in findingcost-effective housing near enough to ground zero to hopefully cutdown on the adjuster's drive time, but still far enough inland suchthat infrastructure and essential services have not been completelydisrupted.”

Brown adds that having worked in New Orleans when parts of thecity were just “a desolate wasteland for adjusters, we now look atthese 'quality of life' issues for our adjusters a little moreclosely in advance and try to assist in minimizing thesedifficulties for our team, which I think in turn leads to higherproductivity and a better level of customer service delivered bythe adjusting team.”

“It's a marathon, not a sprint,” describes David Charles, apublic adjuster with National Fire Adjustment. “Pace yourself toavoid burnout. Many less experienced adjusters become overwhelmedat the immensity of it all and the constant pressure.”

Schulenberg concurs. “The adjuster should take care of himself,get plenty of rest, eat well and relax at every opportunity.” Healso cautions that adjusters should only take on as much work asthey can reasonably handle and not be afraid to say “no” to toomuch work.

As New Orleans continues to rebuild after Katrina, there arestill large areas where new construction stands next to structuresthat bear high water marks like faded tattoos. The storm impactedevery corner of the city, but those who survived Katrina or workedin the aftermath of the storm are older and wiser and will neverforget the lessons it taught them.