Directron.com Recovers from Hurricane Ike

Michael

posted 09/15/08 20:32

What a day! Monday, Sept. 15

We got most orders processed, verified, filled, packed, and shipped today. This was accomplished on the next business day after a direct hit by a major hurricane. All these are accomplished without electricity in our office/warehouse.

These cannot be accomplished without so many people's dedication and hardwork:

Lee and I worked til 3am this morning and woke up at 8am to get the first batch of orders printed. Lee is crucial in getting the IT to work around the electricity problem.

Adam, our warehouse manager, and his crew, Tong, Bin, Lilly, Aiping, Teresa, David, Francisco, Giovanni, Junior, and others worked very hard in the last three days to clean up the mess and fulfill the orders today.

Hong, Johnston, and Marcos worked at Jason's house today to process orders.

Jason, John, and Suzzelle worked in the will-call to take care of the walk-in customers and pick up orders. We had more than 20 people showing up asking for various products today. We are glad that we opened our door to them to help them to ease their pain caused by Ike. I am sure we'll have more customers showing up tomorrow.

Terry took the UPS shipping station to his home and started the shipping process there.

Sam, Pete, and George took turns to guard the building at night and open/close the doors on time. George was the one who was in our building when Ike was hitting us. He heard the noise when the damage was done to our roof.

Minfan, our accounting manager, was in the shipping area packing today - her way of chipping in what she can.

Chris, Vincent and William - some of the tech teams - came in to clean up many work areas.

Jacob, who lives in East side of Houston, came to the office to help twice so far while can't yet return to his house. He, his wife, and two small children are staying in West side of Houston.

We all worked hard and got tired. But then, we received message like the one from satcom74, which makes it all worth it.

Satcom74: Thank you for the message. It means allot to us. It confirms our decision to get our business back running ASAP.

Tomorrow is another day!

Michael

posted 09/15/08 21:36

I am sure we may have some orders that are not processed/shipped on time. For example, we may not have enough people or phone lines right now to call all the customers on orders that may have problems such as shipping address, payment verification, and stock. We apologize for the inconvenience and are sure things will get better day by day.

While the number of orders are currently down from our normal level of business partly because many of our customers may be affected by Ike, we are very proud of these numbers:

So far we have only two (2) cancellations in our orders. That shows that our customers are supporting us to go through this difficult time.

We got our business back running two (2) days after the direct hit by a major hurricane. We did it without electricity or running water.

We are already making plans to make Directron.com even better than before-Ike.

Michael

posted 09/15/08 21:43

Cyber looting

Looting was extensively reported during Katrina. Although rare, it's also being reported during Ike on the streets of Galveston Island and Houston. Several people were arrested.

What if there were people who tried to take advantage of our online order system during the aftermath of Hurricane Ike? We got a couple of frudulant orders in the last two days. What do you call that?

How about "cyber looting?"

Frudulant orders are becoming an increasing burden to any online business. We have to spend much time, energy, and technology to detect them and avoid them. Hurricane didn't make it easier.

Unfortunately, any verification process may also have the risk of annoying good customers. We keep telling that was for their own protection. The majority of our customers understand that.

How spammers work?

We set up a brand new email address directron @ dark-circuit.com for this recovery time period on Saturday night while losing our main emails.

You know what? We received three spamming emails in the next day.

How can spammers work so fast? Are we losing the war against them? There is just no effective technologies out there to get rid of them?

It may have something to do with the spamming spiders.

Michael

posted 09/15/08 21:57

One person was killed today in a gas station

It's sad to hear this story from local radio today.

The most frustrating experience for most Houstonians over Ike so far is the lack of gasoline. The State of Texas and FEMA were supposed to have learned a lesson from Rita three years ago to have a gas distribution system in response to such emergencies. They were talking about having gas tanks stationed in nearby cities such as Austin, San Antonio and Dallas that would be coming to disaster areas the next day or so.

Yet, it's like Rita all over again. People can't find gas. When they do find it, they have to line up for hours to get it. Sometimes the station just run out when it's your turn. It's frustrating to most people.

While most people are patient, fights over gasoline are bound to happen. This guy in Pasadena, Tx - a city in East of Houston, was reported to have waved a knife in a gas station/conveniece store over a quarrel on gas. He didn't drop the knife after the police officer showed up. The police shot him. He was dead. He survived Ike but didn't survive the desire for some lousy gasoline!!!

The situation could be much worse if we have our normal hot, humid weather back. It would be even easier for people to have sudden rages.

Of course, this is only one incident out of a metropolitan of 5.4 million people. So we shouldn't blow it out of proportion. The overwhelming majority of us are working hard trying to cope with what is left of Ike in a calm and peaceful way.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 12:34

Houston, we now have electricity!

We got our electricity back today at 11am, Tuesday, Sept. 16. That is great news to us. Lee and Jacob are now testing the network, Internet access, phone systems, emails, etc. Give us a few more hours, our operations should be back to normal soon.

Another update while I am typing this email: Our phone system is now working. We received a few phone calls from our regular phone numbers already.

We may actually have got the electricity back last night. But we have been so focused on getting our business back running without electricity for an extended period of time, we forgot to test the main power this morning. Nevertheless, we are so happy we have electricity back.

This is actually amazing. It means that we lost electricity only for one and half business days. 70% of Houston still does not have electricity. Again, we are blessed.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 12:40

Lee just instant messaged me that he got network, Internet access, and phone system working.

Hooray!!!

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:15

Picture Tour of Hurricane Ike Damages

You have to see some pictures to appreciate more about what we went through in the last two days.

These are pictures of the roof damages to our warehouse. Just imagine the shock I felt when I climbed the ladders to the roof in the morning of the 13th.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:19

The water-proof layer was blown into a twisted pile...

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:26

On Sunday morning, eight of us removed the remaining standing water on our roof and stretched the roof skin back...

This does not look like a roof. It reminds me fish ponds where people try to catch some fish by drying up the pond.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:31

By Sunday afternoon, we put a temporary patch on the roof. We just want to avoid the double blow we experinced on Sunday.

I am sure all the roof guys in town will be very, very busy for at least a few months. Perhaps, we should become professional roofers. That will certainly be a good business. :)

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:34

What matters is that our building is still standing... and so is our business and spirit.

This is our building under yet another beautiful sunset on Saturday, Sept. 13.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:35

Here is that sunset from the Harwin street.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:37

By Sunday evening, we moved our back-end server to Jason's house. On Monday morning, Sept. 15, the first businss day and barely 2 days after Hurricane Ike, Hong, Marcos, and Johnston are working on order processing...

Now they all wish their office furniture is just as nice, they can wear shorts to work every day, and the refrigerator is within a short stroke of their chairs. :)

Chris, who used to be a Navy guy, called this a "mobile command center."

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:38

By Monday afternoon, we started having packages ready for picking up... while the entire building was still dark.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:42

The warehouse worked swiftly to get more products picked and packed.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:43

These went to the UPS truck already...

Michael

posted 09/16/08 13:47

By 5pm on Monday, UPS took the truck off from us and on their way to our customers.

I can see the smiling faces of our customers. That would be the greatest rewards for our hard work in the last three days.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 14:03

We are a survivor.

When Vicky started the business, we had two and half workers in a small office. Now we have over 100 people, over 136,000 sq. ft. spaces, and three locations (Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio).

The street we are on - Harwin - is the famoius "distributor center" of Texas. It used to have over 30 PC distributors and wholesellers within this area. Remember Pentex, Microstop, Arsys, MicroMax, PC2000, Chou's, Liuskie, HB Distribution, Supercom, Power-Up, Leadman...? Now it's been down to perhaps only two and half. The half is only a half because they just moved their warehouse out of Houston while keeping a sales office. Two other resellers downsized and moved out of Harwin this year.

We have more than survived the last 14 years of continued PC war by keeping doing what our customers want us to do.

We can surely survive this little hurricane called Ike.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 14:13

What I saw from my home to office on Saturday morning

On Saturday morning, Sept. 13, 7:30am, I drove from Sugar Land to west Houston to check our warehouse situation. This was while Ike was still blowing, raining, and both Sugar Land and Houston were under curfew.

This was the first time I saw the effects of Ike on our neighborhood and streets.

Michael

posted 09/16/08 14:14

I have to drive around this tree on the street.

Original blog was published on our user forum.
You are welcome to leave comments, pictures, and info there.

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