UPS marks centennial at Katrina-damaged hub in New Orleans

<p>UPS plans to kickoff its centennial-year celebration Friday in eastern New Orleans, where its local hub, flooded after Hurricane Katrina, is seen as a spark of life in a neighborhood slowly returning from the storm.</p><p>"We're such a fabric of this community, we always have been," spokesman Dan McMackin said. "It only made sense to make this our first step."</p><p>This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Atlanta-based UPS, which began as a private messenger and delivery firm called American Messenger Company in Seattle in 1907, according to the company's Web site. Over the decades, it evolved from delivering packages on foot and by bike to using the famous brown trucks and planes to make stops around the world.</p><p>The company's chief executive, Mike Eskew, is expected to meet with employees Friday at the hub, which officials said was flooded with 6 feet of water after Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005. The facility reopened in storm-ravaged eastern New Orleans just two months later, in November 2005.</p><p>It's reopening is seen as example for others in a neighborhood that is slowly rebuilding, City Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell said.</p><p>"I think everyone feels confident to make that kind of leap when you see a company of the caliber of UPS saying, 'We believe in New Orleans, we believe that this area is coming back,'" she said.</p><p>There are signs of life across the neighborhood: businesses, such as groceries, a hardware store and a gymnastics center, have reopened, and homes are being rebuilt. But the signs of Katrina are inescapable. In some areas, a watermark stands on vacant houses with weedy front yards. Windows on some businesses and homes remain boarded up or are broken out.</p><p>UPS began deliveries _ of both normal packages and relief supplies _ within about three weeks of the storm, McMackin said. He estimated that hundreds of trucks and drivers volunteered to help.</p><p>UPS said it reinvested about $7.6 million into the New Orleans hub after the storm. In addition to building damage, the company lost a fleet of vehicles, said Lance Laurent, the business operations manager.</p><p>Eskew said UPS is committed to the area. "You don't get to be 100 years old without going through tough times and having to get up and start over again," he said.</p><p>The New Orleans center currently employs 655 people, roughly the same as before Katrina, and delivers an average of 14,534 packages a day, the company said. Some drivers had difficulty finding homes and businesses after the storm, because so many street signs were missing, Laurent said. Some neighborhoods still have far fewer drivers than before Katrina because there aren't as many people there, he added.</p><p>UPS says it employs more than 427,000 people worldwide. The company's reported revenue for 2005 was $42.6 billion.</p>

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