Hurricane Nate Speeds Across the Gulf Of Mexico Towards the U.S.

Now Category 1 Hurricane Nate may intesify slightly before making landfall Saturday night.

Saturday, 07 October 2017 06:00:00 -05:00



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Recommendations for Contact Centers

ContactRelief is making public its Hurricane Nate recommendations made to subscribers on Friday, October 6th, 2017.

ContactRelief recommends suspending contact with consumers in the following Alabama counties: Baldwin, Butler, Choctaw, Clarke, Conecuh, Covington, Crenshaw, Escambia, Mobile, Monroe, Washington, Wilcox.

ContactRelief recommends suspending contact with consumers in the following Florida counties: Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa.

ContactRelief recommends suspending contact with consumers in the following Louisiana parishes: Ascension, Washington.

A previous recommendation remains in effect to suspend contact with consumers in the following Louisiana parishes: Assumption, Iberia, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Martin, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Vermilion.

ContactRelief recommends suspending contact with consumers in the following Mississippi counties: Clarke, Forrest, George, Greene, Jasper, Jones, Lamar, Pearl River, Perry, Stone, Wayne.

A previous recommendation remains in effect to suspend contact with consumers in the following Mississippi counties: Hancock, Harrison, Jackson.

For contact centers calling Mexico, ContactRelief recommends resuming contact with consumers in the following Mexican states: Quintana Roo, Yucatan.

Hurricane Nate Update

Tropical Storm Nate intensified overnight into a Category 1 hurricane. The National Hurricane Center said in its 4 AM CDT advisory that Hurricane Nate was located about 297 nm south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi river. As expected the forward motion of the storm increased overnight. Nate is now sprinting across the Gulf Of Mexico at 22 MPH. Landfall is expected later this evening. The current forecast shows the storm intensifying slightly before it makes landfall between the eastern coast of Louisiana and western coast Alabama later this evening. Hurricane Warnings have been issued for much of the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines and Tropical Storm Warnings have been issued further inland in Alabama and extending to the western Florida panhandle.

A map of the U.S. and Gulf of Mexico shows the
		  forecasted track of Hurricane Nate as it moves across the Gulf Of Mexico towards landfall on the central Gulf Coast of the United States.
Figure 1: Forecasted Track of Hurricane Nate (Courtesy: National Hurricane Center).

The National Hurricane Center said that "Life-threatening storm surge flooding is likely along portions of the northern Gulf Coast, and a storm surge warning is in effect from Morgan City, Louisiana, to the Okaloosa/Walton county line in Florida. Residents in these areas should heed any evacuation instructions given by local officials." A storm surge of 6 feet is likely with areas as high as 9 feet as the storm approaches.

Hurricane Season is Not Over

We still have 55 days until the end of hurricane season (November 30th). This has been an extremely active hurricane season and this may not be the last storm to make its way to the U.S. If you are a risk manager or contact center operator, you need to act now to have continued access to ContactRelief's recommendations.

Why You Must Also Prepare for Man-Made Disasters - The Las Vegas Mass Shooting

Contact centers need to be prepared to act quickly and decisively not only for forecasted events like hurricanes, but also for man-made disasters that cannot be predicted. On Sunday night in Las Vegas, over 50 people were killed and over 500 injured in a senseless mass shooting at a local music festival.

ContactRelief issued a recommendation to suspend contact to accounts with zip codes surrounding the Las Vegas Strip on October 2nd at 12:30 AM PDT, a little more than 2 hours after the incident began, and expanded this contact suspension recommendation at 4:30 AM PDT to include all of the county surrounding Las Vegas (Clark County, Nevada) as more details became known.

If you are like most companies, you can't afford the staff to perform the around the clock monitoring required to act promptly, the management of multiple concurrent disasters, and information gathering it takes to know when and where to suspend and resume contact for all types of possible events. But why bother when ContactRelief has this and more for less than $300 per month.

Why You Must Act Now

Our offer of free access to our service will expire soon. We provide the only service specially designed for contact centers and focused on all aspects of the customer experience during natural and man-made disasters. We can not only tell you when and where to suspend contact, but when and why you should resume contact, and how you can improve your brand image by the actions you take during these periods. Because before starting ContactRelief we owned and operated large contact centers, we understand your business perspective, and our recommendations are designed to help you deliver a great customer experience while still enabling you to achieve your other objectives.

Don't Delay

The next disaster is on its way. Become a ContactRelief subscriber and keep your company protected from disaster. Our full recommendations consist of the areas to be suspended and the list of zip codes covering these areas. For as little as $300 per month your company can quickly implement a solution that protects your company and its customers. As we say at ContactRelief, "It's just smart business."

Contact sales@contactrelief.com for more information.

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