Tim Doody, administrator for law firm Chaffe McCall, sent an email to his colleagues at 3:53 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 26, 2005. Subject line: “Katrina—The Hurricane.”
As Business Report details in a feature from the current issue, everyone at the firm’s main office at the Energy Centre in New Orleans was urged to close window blinds and doors, remove papers from desks, and generally do what they would normally do when a named storm is in the Gulf of Mexico. Many of the firm’s attorneys and employees left the office Friday evening and walked down Poydras Street to catch the New Orleans Saints preseason game, likely expecting, at most, a hurricane-induced long weekend.
Soon the firm, along with most of the city’s residents, was scattered throughout the region, and Doody’s house in St. Bernard Parish was underwater. On Monday night, Doody was finally able to make contact with firm partner John Olinde, who had evacuated to his parents’ home in Baton Rouge. They agreed to meet at Chaffe McCall’s Capital City office in Two United Plaza the next day.
And until New Orleans was inhabitable again, Baton Rouge would be the firm’s home base.
“We had about six people working in the Baton Rouge office,” recalls Olinde, who now is the firm’s managing partner. “Within about two weeks [of the storm], we had about 50 people. It was pretty wild.”
Olinde’s quick action enabled him to grab a bit of extra space for the firm before there was none left to be had. They also were able to rent some cubicles shortly before the vendor ran out to subdivide their offices and provide a modicum of privacy. For about three months, everyone was basically “climbing on each other,” he says.
Olinde says the experience brought the firm closer together in spirit, not just physically, as everyone worked to find some sense of normalcy. The experience also helped build the firm’s Baton Rouge business, as everyone made new contacts and reconnected with clients who also had evacuated.
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