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If you are made of the right stuff, a problem – no matter what its size – is just an opportunity to bounce back higher. Post Cyclone Gonu, that was the approach demonstrated by businesses in Oman. For some, the cyclone devastated the physical: premises and stocks. Most companies were affected by association: their customers distressed, their staff facing challenges both professionally and personally. In the accounts that follow, corporate representatives share their experiences as the storm unravelled, and after it had run its course.
Nazia Khan reports

We should always be alert

Aqeel Jawad Sultan,
Group managing director, Jawad Sultan Enterprises
(Owners of Capital Store)

Of all our businesses, only Capital Store was affected by the cyclone. We have completely lost the shops at CCC and our main Qurm showroom, and about 50 per cent of the shop at SABCO. Luckily, all our shops and our stock have STF insurance coverage.

We had the early warning about the cyclone of course, but we did not expect things to be so bad. We had switched off the electricity as we left our offices but we had not moved anything out. We anticipated strong winds, a rough sea, and the wadis overflowing, but we had not imagined that the water from the wadis would have such force and speed.

The main damage we sustained was not because of the water. The water picked up big pipes, which were being used for construction in the area, and those pipes hit our glasses and broke through our windows. The glass in our stores was very strong and bulletproof. During the last rains, we were not affected at all. But the situation was different this time.

We started cleaning our showrooms from day one after the cyclone. We hired people from outside for this, and our staff was involved as well, mainly to move the stock that was left. Meanwhile, the municipality has been clearing the area outside.

I am not sure how long the Capital Store at CCC, which was a very small shop selling only perfumes and cosmetics, will remain closed. The store at SABCO should be operational in early July. Our main Qurm showroom will take a few more weeks to be ready. We will soon announce a temporary location, out of where we will operate until then. Our staff at the SABCO outlet will go back there, while the other staff – three from the CCC shop and 13 from the main showroom – will work from the temporary location.
We plan to completely restructure the way the showroom looks. We will keep in mind what affected us during the cyclone. We will have shutters, which we did not have earlier. There will also be elevated platforms to increase the height of the floor. And we plan on having smaller windows. We are trying our best to get the new location ready as fast as possible but preparing the drawings and getting the required materials do take time. The proper planning for a showroom like we have in mind, with a new concept and safety features, is bound to.

Since we have retail as well as wholesale business, the stopping of operations for a period of time will affect Capital Store. We are supplying to our wholesale clients but our retail business will take time to get back to the way it was. Though SABCO will be operational soon, we will not be getting the same business at the temporary location due to various factors. However, the Capital Stores at both Bahja and Salalah are operating.

Smaller businesses will surely be affected by the cyclone a lot more than big businesses. Big businesses are parts of larger entities. I think the government should step in to help these smaller players because they might have lost everything they own.

What I have learnt from this experience is that we should always be alert. We should take warnings more seriously. Perhaps we could have been more careful. Meanwhile, we are hoping for the best for the future. We are sure measures will be taken for the safety of Qurm, which is the best area in town.

We made processes easier

Deepak Kamath,
Area manager, Oman, AXA Insurance

The company has faced similar issues in other parts of the world and we were prepared to manage the situation. Our business continuity plan (BCP) also helped in this regard. Fortunately, we did not face any damage to our office premises. We immediately assembled our task force and decided on an action plan. We doubled the number of people in our claims department and opened all counters. We were able to do this since all our staff are trained to work in different departments. We also brought in two staffers from our UAE offices. When we opened our offices on the first working day, we handled 150 individual claims in the first four hours. We made the process of registering a claim with us easier by providing a simple form that we had prepared in advance. As of June 24, we had registered 525 motor claims and 125 non-motor claims. The majority of the non-motor claims relate to home insurance.

The problem was not handling clients. The immediate question was – what next? Initially, infrastructure was still affected. There was waterlogging and towing vehicles were not available. For the damages to be assessed, vehicles had to be cleaned, but the workshops did not have water. We have to first determine whether or not vehicles can be repaired. If they can, they will be. If they cannot, the vehicle salvage will be transferred to us, and the insurance amount will be paid to the individual or the finance company. In case of home insurance, the process tends to be more painful for the people with claims since they have lost so many personal effects.

Over 95 per cent of our customers had STF (storm, tempest and flood) cover. We always try to convince our customers to go in for this additional protection and most of them do. We believe in bearing more risk and also retaining more risk over reinsurance. So the pay out relating to damages our clients have suffered will have a direct impact on our bottom line. But we are a strong company and we have the resources to back us up.

Due to the competition, uneconomical rates had been prevailing here. All insurers and reinsurers suffered because of this. In the future, our rates are definitely going to go up.

Passengers understood

Sowgandhi Pancharatnam
Country manager-Oman, Air India and Air India Express

On June 5, we got a notice from the Director General of Civil Aviation that flights may not be operating from later that night due to the expected cyclone. Our flights operated as usual through June 5. Our last flight that took off from Muscat on June 5 was IX 426 at 23:25pm. This was an Air India Express flight headed to Kochi, with a total of 167 passengers on board. At this point of time, we did not have any passengers who wanted to change their flights that were scheduled for June 6 or June 7. Rescheduling requests came much later.

Our first flight which did not operate as per normal schedule was IX349/350 that was to come in from Trivandrum to Muscat and then head to Calicut. That flight took off from Trivandrum, but was diverted to Dubai due closure of Muscat airspace. The incoming passengers who were headed to Muscat on this flight were provided with hotel accommodation in Dubai.

The next flights to be affected were the Muscat-Kochi flight-IX442 of June 7, the AI840 and AI844 Air India flights to Delhi and Mumbai, and the Trivandrum and Calicut flights IX534 of June 8. The passengers who were travelling by these flights obviously could not even reach the airport. But we had a few passengers of Air India Express, who had got to the airport on the morning of June 6, and were stranded there. We provided these passengers with meals. Besides, three of our staff members were at the airport for two days, since they could not leave because of the situation outside. More passengers, totalling about 100, came in on the morning of June 8. All these passengers were also provided with refreshments and meals.

Our flight that had earlier been diverted to Dubai, operated on June 8, reaching Muscat at 9:55am, and departed with those stranded passengers to Calicut. We started operating our regular flights from June 9 albeit with a delay in our schedule due to the cyclone. From then on, passengers booked on the cancelled flights were accommodated on subsequent flights. Flight IX350 took off for Calicut with 179 passengers on June 9, and on the same night we had flight IX830 to Mangalore with 100 passengers. AI840 and AI844 operated on June 9 to Delhi and Mumbai respectively. IX424 operated to Kochi on the morning of June 10, with 120 passengers. We kept accommodating passengers booked on earlier or later flights on these flights as per their preference. Most of our passengers were very understanding about this. They knew that the situation earlier had been beyond us.

Later, there were many people who came to our city office to change their bookings since they could not travel, having lost their passports and other personal effects because of the cyclone. They changed their bookings to much later dates as per their preference.

Normally, if there is a change of booking on Air India Express flights, there is a cancellation charge. But this was not charged to any passengers during this period.

We kept taking in guests

Desmond Hatton
General manager, Shangri-La’s Barr al Jissah Resort and Spa

There was no structural damage to the hotel. However, there was peripheral damage to the Marina and the beach. The hotel is insured, and we have experts who are assessing the damage now and repairs will be undertaken as per their suggestions.

We have a facility for de-salination here so there was no interruption of water supply during the cyclone or since. We did have some interruptions of power but our stand-by generator helped. On Thursday, after the storm, we began cleaning up the hotel. Our operations have been fully back up since. We were even taking in guests. There was cooperation between various hotels here so guests were moved to our rooms from others. We were also taking in local residents. Our concern all through was the safety of our guests and staff.

No choice but to evacuate

York Brandes
General manager, The Chedi Muscat

When the cyclone hit, we moved everything that was outside the hotel, inside. We also secured everything that required securing. Despite this, on the morning of June 6, we had no choice but to evacuate our guests. In just 10 minutes, the ground floor of the hotel was flooded. Water got to all the ground floor rooms, and the restaurant was flooded too. Surprisingly enough, the beach restaurant was not affected. We chose the Radisson for our evacuation because it is inland. We evacuated a total of 115 people.

Our emergency exercise was successful, but with the damage that had been done, there was nothing else we could do then. Now, the main task is to repair the restaurant. We hope to open the restaurant again in two months. Our situation does look bad from the street but there has really been no major damage. Contractors are doing surveys of what needs to be done by way of repairs, and we will soon have a clearer picture about this. We expect to resume operations by the end of August.

Water level was 1.5mtrs

Uttam Kotian,
Manager-Promotion and Advertising, Al Araimi Complex

We had the warning about the rains, but we never expected it to be so bad. We did tell our tenants to be careful, and most of the shops (of the 28 outlets) were closed well in advance on June 5 itself. By late that evening, there were only two of our security officers in the complex. Once the rains started and continued, the force of the water was so strong that it broke in through the entrance. The entire basement filled with water. On the ground floor, the water level was about one and a half metres. The water did not reach the first floor, where our security officers took shelter.

When we got to the complex after the cyclone had passed, there was so much muck as well as water to clear from the basement and the ground floor. The water from the ground floor started going out. But it took us four days to clear the basement. It had to be pumped out; we did this using eight pumps. This was done by the complex’s management.

Several features of the complex, including the electricity fittings and the false ceilings, have been damaged. Several electronic showrooms have been devastated. But I would like to specify that not a single dead body was found in the complex. For some reason, rumours to the effect that bodies were found here are doing the rounds.

Now, we are cooperating with our tenants so that they can assess the damage to their shops. Meanwhile, we are waiting for a consultant’s report about the building. If the foundation of the building is strong, we will go in for a revamp. But whatever happens, the rebuilding process will take time.

Lost stock

Daynise Awad,
Proprietor, Caravans

I was tracking the cyclone online, and so had more information about it. We closed the flower shop (located in Al Harthy complex) well in time. The flowers, of which we had a full fridge, were left in the shop because there was no place to put them. When we returned to the shop after the cyclone, we found that since there had been no electricity, our stock was lost. During this time, we also had a shipment coming in from Holland that could not be collected. So we had to throw that stock out too. Our equipment was insured. But fresh commodities have a high premium, and so we had not insured our stock. Fortunately for us, our premises were not damaged. We had some mud come in, which was on the floors, but this we cleaned out. Our staff was fine as well. And our business is back to normal.

Contingency plans

With the announcement of the tropical cyclone Gonu approaching the sultanate, Oman Mobile, in association with the Oman Telecommunication Company (Omantel), put together a contingency plan and formulated a strategy to deal with any damages that might occur, to avoid any potential breakdown in operations, and to find immediate solutions to raise the competency of the network. The committee was headed by Dr Mohammed al Wohaibi, president of Oman Telecommunication Company, while Dr Amer al Rawas, managing director of Oman Mobile, headed the Oman Mobile team. Engineer Sami al Ghassani, division head of networks in Oman Mobile, was also an active member, in addition to a group of Oman Mobile Network engineers and technicians.

Several meetings were conducted with the Omantel team to discuss and plan steps to avoid as much as possible of the expected damages to the network and the property of the company, as well as to maintain the same level of service and quality that all customers are used to from Oman Mobile. As a result of these meetings, teams were formed and sent to those areas that were expected to be hit by the cyclone.

Says Engineer Sami al Ghassani, “Despite the difficulty of the situation, we are proud to say that the Oman Mobile team reached the damaged areas in record time. Our team worked round the clock with the aim to reach the damaged areas as fast as possible and to identify problems to provide quick solutions to ensure the best level of service to our customers. The team faced power cuts in most of the damaged areas, but as they were trained to face and handle problems, we were able to overcome this hurdle and provide service to the affected areas.”

Continues Ghassani, “With the grace of God and the efforts of the team, temporary and immediate solutions were found to operate the transmission stations. 20 mobile generators were also provided in different locations as an alternative solution, until electricity was back to these areas. The generators were also used to provide electricity to charge mobile phones for the local residents in those areas. This was due to the unavailability of any electricity supply.”

“We are really proud of the results that have been achieved by the team till date. We have a lot yet to achieve but we are very grateful to everyone who participated in this effort of ours to make the team's work easy. With the support of all the parties involved, we were able to restore service in all the affected wilayats and areas to the previous levels and even more.”