Freeport-McMoRan moves HQ temporary on flooding

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. has temporarily moved its headquarters to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from flooded New Orleans, a spokesman for the mining company said on Thursday as quoted by agency.

Because New Orleans is a hurricane-prone city, most companies headquartered there already have emergency plans in place, said Vice President of Communications Bill Collier.

The company's New Orleans headquarters is located downtown near the Louisiana Superdome, and while Hurricane Katrina inflicted only minor damage to the building, it was the levee break afterward that flooded the downtown area decimating all power, water, transportation and telecommunications systems.

"Our building had only minor wind damage from the Hurricane, but when the flood waters broke there was about a foot and a half of water on the ground floor," Collier said.

As with storms in the past, he said, on news of Hurricane Katrina's approach, Freeport-McMoRan sent out a team to set up a temporary facility at which it could operate its core business until the storm had passed.

But in the case of Katrina, 80 percent of New Orleans was underwater from massive flooding following the levee break and bedlam in the streets was rampant. No one has any idea how long it will take to restore basic infrastructure and services.

While its New Orleans staff was administrative only, Collier added that all of Freeport's main mining and smelting operations were overseas in Indonesia and Spain and were unaffected by the Hurricane.(*)