Diane Probst is the President & CEO of the Rockport-Fulton Chamber of Commerce. This episode is packed full of useful information for any Chamber to be prepared to jump into action after any disaster. For some Chambers, they may face the threat of tornadoes, others wildfires, earthquakes, flooding, terrorism, disease, and a number of many other types of disasters. Diane shares with us her experience during and after Hurricane Harvey which targeted the Rockport-Fulton area as ground zero!
With this disaster being a hurricane, they had the advantage of seeing the storm coming and a warning system to allow for evacuations and for residents and businesses to be prepared for impact. Their E.O.C. meetings would normally have around 75-100 people from the community attend, but as the storm got closer, Diane found herself as 1 of 15 people at this meeting to prepare to respond and to safe guard their community. At this point, many people had already evacuated inland but Diane was determined to be a hero to protect their businesses.
As the storm approached they were given timelines as to when certain services would no longer work such as toilets, electricity, and internet. Once Diane saw they were about to loose their internet, she went inland about 3 hours to be with family and set up a “remote Chamber office” on a kitchen table. Diane and her daughter were glued to any updates and were doing their very best to push information out to the community. Looking back, she would have developed a social media team to data mine information to better keep their businesses and community more informed.
When Diane returned after the storm, they found that the Chamber office, her husband’s business, and their home were all still standing and in good shape while most of the area around them was destroyed. This turned out to be a huge blessing to the business community to have a Chamber that was still able to function. A Go Fund Me account was set up and raised over $1.4 million dollars to help with the recovery. Over a half a million dollars was provided in small business grants. Over 5,500 white trucks showed up to help restore power and to clean up the area.
As the community continues to rebound from this terrific storm, 93% of the businesses are open again. Since the Rockport-Fulton area is very tourism driven, George Strait stepped in to help with a campaign to bring tourism back to the area.
There have been a number of other “silver linings” that the community is being blessed with as well. Ellen DeGeneres and Lowe’s have partnered to build a new gymnasium. Yeti is helping to rebuild the Fulton Pier. There is a new Center for Performing Arts that is planned, as well as a new Convention Center, and Courthouse & City Hall. The Rockport-Fulton Chamber is also partnering with other Chambers to build solar panel kiosks to help provide power, internet, and information to be better prepared in the future.
Some lessons learn are:
- The world will respond. Just 6 weeks after the storm, the Chamber held their annual fundraiser which turned out to be their 6th best ever!
- Every Chamber should have a seat with their Emergency Management Team. Do it now!
- Visit other Cities to learn how they establish and implement their crisis plan.
- Be prepared to be a leader when disaster strikes!
In addition to being a great leader at the Chamber and in her community, Diane is also an author. Many Chamber professionals know of her book, Chamberology. She is also coming out with a new book, co-authored with her daughter, titled When the Storm Comes which will be out in July 2019.
If you need to reach out to Diane about anything she shared in this episode, she can be reached at: president@1rockport.org or on her cell phone at 361-463-1585. You can also connect with Diane on Facebook.
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