As of  last evening we have made contact with 54 of our 55 employees and all of them are safe. The other employee lives 20 miles north of New Orleans, in Mississippi, which was not flooded so we believe that he is also safe. Approximately 13 or 14 employees lost their homes and everything they had, while others suffered varying degrees of damage. We are making arrangements to help them as we determine their needs.
The entire area remains without power, water, phone service, sewage etc. and it will be some weeks or months before these are restored and people can even get back into the area. It is estimated that it could be several weeks before the water is pumped out of the city so that clean up can start.
Two of our managers were able to reach our plant of New Orleans by tugboat accompanied by the Coast Guard on Sunday. About 75% of the plant is still under 3 feet of water which is down from 8 feet last week. As you might expect, it will be some months before we are back in operation at this plant and we won’t have a full assessment until our people can get back in to review the damage.
Both our Burnside, La. e Natchez, Miss. terminals have power back on and are loading out cement. Brandon, Miss. terminal is still without power.
Ocean ships are now permitted into the Mississippi River and we will unload our next import ship this week directly into barges which will be sent to our Orange, Texas terminal.
I will keep you informed as we get further information.

D. A. Nepereny