Recovery efforts underway at flooded Bloomsburg Kawneer facility

Recovery efforts are underway at the flooded Bloomsburg, Pa., Kawneer North America facility, and the company is "currently assessing options and instituting processes to address order fulfillment on both new and existing orders," according to a Sept. 27 letter to customers from Diana Perreiah, general manager. The letter reads as follows:

"Over the past two weeks, Kawneer has been working diligently to address the challenges presented by the flood in our Bloomsburg facility. I wanted to provide you with an update on our recovery plan and give you insight into the activity that has already taken place in Bloomsburg.

We are currently assessing options and instituting processes to address order fulfillment on both new and existing orders. Every existing order that has been affected by the Bloomsburg flood will be rescheduled beginning with December 2011 schedule dates. The rescheduling process is a critical activity and may take up to two weeks. Once the new schedules are determined, please understand that we will not be in a position to improve or expedite these orders. New Bloomsburg orders received will be scheduled based upon capacity once the existing orders are rescheduled.

We will continue to focus our efforts to improve the overall position of our schedule. At the same time, we are committed to reacting as quickly as possible to re-establish production in Bloomsburg. Recovery efforts are underway with initial clean-up and equipment assessments now complete. We continue to complete facility repairs and equipment repairs. We look forward to being able to communicate more details in the coming weeks.

We appreciate your continued patience and support as we work through this challenging time."