Home Depot opens command center to prepare stores for Hurricane Isaias

More than 200 workers filled five rooms at Home Depot’s Vinings headquarters Friday morning, carefully coordinating for the first Atlantic hurricane this season.

This is the home improvement giant’s emergency command center.

It’s been activated for the first time this year in preparation for Isaias, a Category 3 hurricane expected to make landfall early Saturday along the Gulf Coast, which has spurred a state of emergency in Georgia.

“Oh, it’s going to be spicy. Everybody’s going to get nervous,” Jeff Partin, Home Depot’s director of emergency preparedness and business continuity, said during a tour Friday.

At the command center, workers huddle in front of laptops. Big screens stream news and storm conditions. Real-time camera feeds flow from dozens of Home Depot stores.

The employees hail from multiple departments, from merchandise to store operations, information technology, communications, supply chain and transportation logistics. Also at the command center are third-party meteorological and emergency management partners.

Their task is complex.

The command center works to ensure Home Depot customers in affected areas have the products they need. Severe storms tend to spur more demand for home improvement essentials.

That includes storm preparation supplies such as plywood, generators, flashlights, batteries and bottled water — and post-storm recovery items including cleanup chemicals, roof shingles and wet-dry vacuums.

“We go ahead and front load all the locations there to have the appropriate merchandise in the communities in advance of the event,” Partin said.

For Isaias, that has meant stocking extra inventory in areas from Mobile, Alabama, to Destin, Florida, he said, preparations that were completed Thursday night.

But the command center also must keep tabs on weather patterns near Home Depot stores to determine if and when they must close because of dangerous conditions.

“It’s all based on the arrival of the winds and local conditions, and once it’s determined it’s unfit or it’s approaching a point where we would be concerned — shut the door,” Partin said. “We absolutely have to ensure the safety of our associates.”

For example, Home Depot has a cluster of stores located along the Interstate 10 corridor near Pensacola, as shown Friday on a digital screen inside the command center that pinpointed those locations — directly in the projected path of Hurricane Isaias.

“We are actively evaluating the appropriate time to close,” Partin said on the tour.

“Everybody focuses on the winds and that sort of thing, but we also have to evaluate the water,” he later said. “There’s a lot of storm surge, coastal flooding, so any of these things alone can influence if it’s safe to be there.”

Even when a store closes, Home Depot works to have supplies ready when weather conditions subside and the location can safely reopen, Partin said.

“We have a lot of resources staged on the periphery of an impact zone, so that they can really be quickly deployed into the market,” he said. “There’s not a lot of delay in supplies getting in.”

The command center orchestrates all these movements: merchandising identifies needed products, supply chain determines where to source them, and transportation coordinates trucks and routes for delivery.

Partin has been with Home Depot for almost 25 years. He said the command center is modeled after state emergency operations. It can be activated for disasters beyond hurricanes, including severe winter weather.

“We want to respond and partner with states, counties, other businesses and be part of a total national response to this type of thing,” he said.