As this issue goes to press, the food industry is less than two months removed from one of its largest annual gatherings--the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT, Chicago) Show in New Orleans. That city, as this is being written, is three days removed from Hurricane Katrina, the category 4 storm that hit the Gulf Coast area of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with winds in excess of 130 miles per hour and a storm surge of well over 25 feet.
Relief has begun to pour into the areas, and the region already has promises of donations from food and beverage companies large and small. All is much needed and will be enormously appreciated but, looking ahead, these efforts cannot be a short-term endeavor. More than a quarter of a million New Orleans residents have been displaced into shelters around the country and are expected to remain there for a minimum of four months. In Mississippi, the rebuilding effort will not be completed quickly. After Hurricane Camille struck Biloxi, Miss., and surrounding areas in 1969, it took more than a decade for the area to rebound economically. Katrina appears to have been more destructive than even that legendary storm, and its economic impact is still being calculated.