How Do Large Hotels Prepare for a Hurricane?

USA Today:  How do large, New York City hotels plan for an unusual weather event such as Hurricane Irene?

To understand what's likely going on inside the Big Apple's biggest hotels, I spoke with veteran hotelier Peter Strebel. He's the general manager at the 400-room Omni Berkshire in Midtown Manhattan. We spoke this morning, just as he'd stepped out of a hurricane planning meeting.

Are guests canceling rooms? Right now, we're taking as many cancellations as we are reservations.

Last night, 34 guests cancelled but this morning a lot of our corporate accounts such as News Corp., BlackRock booked because they need people to run their operations. Most of them are taking precautions and having people come into the city so they can run operations (in case they can't get to work due to storm-related damage).

Can people still get rooms at your hotel this weekend? We expect to be 85% full Friday night and sold out on Saturday night. We may have availability on Sunday night

Are you changing your rates? We're keeping rates that we had if there was no storm. I've heard that some hotels are price gouging because people from Long Island are coming, and you've got people from Lower Manhattan wanting to book Upper Manhattan. We're not out to gouge anyone.

What do you do if employees can't make it to work? We want to run at good service levels, so we have eight managers who will be staying over the entire weekend. I also live at the hotel. We're also getting volunteers from the restaurant, housekeeping and front desk to stay. We could have as many as 20 rooms allocated to associates this weekend.

Does a hotel buy extra supplies like most everyone else does? We bought extra cases of bottled water, and we doubled our food quantities for the weekend - so that's doubled the supply we normally have of eggs, bread and cheese. We bought batteries, candles, glow sticks, umbrellas and everything else you can think of.

Do you expect to have power when/if the hurricane hits? We have full generators at this hotel that have already been tested. They don't cover all areas but they keep the building functioning.

Amtrak's California Zepher Derails, Injuring a Dozen

Reuters: An Amtrak train carrying an estimated 178 passengers struck a crane in southwest Nebraska on Friday, partially derailing and sending nearly a dozen people to local hospitals, authorities said.

There were no reports of life-threatening injuries from the collision, which occurred at about 8:50 a.m. local time near Benkelman, Nebraska, derailing two locomotives and three cars, an Amtrak spokesman said. Seven cars stayed on the tracks.

Seven people were being treated at Dundy County Hospital in Benkelman, spokeswoman Sandy Noffsinger said, describing them as reporting neck and back injuries. Four other people with lesser injuries were sent to other facilities, she said.

Noffsinger said none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening, though it was possible some of the patients could remain at the hospital for observation.

The train struck a crane that was razing an old grain elevator adjacent to the tracks in an unincorporated area west of Benkelman, a county official said.

The two locomotives were tipped on their left side, a baggage car just behind was tilted at a 45 degree angle and two other cars were off the tracks but upright, a bystander said.

The California Zephyr train had left the San Francisco Bay area enroute to Chicago on August 24. Passengers were being taken to a nearby high school and Amtrak said it planned to transport them east to their destinations by bus.

The passengers were taken to Dundy County Stratton High School in Benkelman near the Nebraska-Kansas border, the school district confirmed.

The train was running on BNSF Railway Co tracks, Amtrak said.

BNSF has temporarily halted trains operating on the line where the accident occurred, but had not yet issued a service advisory to customers, BNSF spokesman Andy Williams said.

The National Transportation Safety Board was still collecting information on the accident and had not yet determined whether it would warrant a full-blown NTSB investigation, spokesman Peter Knudson said.