JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—The sheer size of Hurricane Irma—larger than the entire state of Florida—is what shut down First Florida Credit Union for the first time in a decade.
Hurricane Irma and its 185-mile-per hour winds at its peak, which killed four people in Florida and 27 people across the Caribbean—has affected nearly all the 136 credit unions in the Sunshine State in some fashion. The League of Southeastern CUs (LSCU) said it is still in the process of assessing the storm’s impact on credit unions and their members.
First Florida CEO Brent Lister told CUToday.info that due to the storm FFCU on Monday closed all its 13 offices that span the state.
“This is the first time we were completely closed,” said Lister. “It was the first time in the last 10 years that we could not open at least some of our offices to serve our members when a storm hit.”
Lister said the $850-million CU prides itself on its “redundancy capability.”
“By having branches throughout Florida, we can be open in Miami and Tallahassee and process transactions when a storm hits in Jacksonville, for example, and vice versa. But for member and staff safety, and due to the reach of this storm, we closed all of our facilities across the state Monday.”
Offices remained closed Tuesday morning, after which most reopened by noon. Lister said two locations in Jacksonville, including the credit union’s main facility, remained closed Tuesday as the city cleaned up after the storm and its related flooding.
Lister said First Florida was fortunate to not sustain any significant damage to any of its offices. He said some minor water damage has been the only issue.
“We are fortunate that most of our offices are not along the coast. We have a Miami location, but it is well secured inside an office building,” Lister explained.
Before the CU reopened Tuesday, Lister said he expects First Florida will hear from many members impacted by Irma.
“We are ready,” he said. “Already, before Irma hit, we turned off some of our fees, such as those from courtesy pay. We know it will be hard for members to make deposits. We also held up on share draft processing the last few days. We won’t process until Wednesday. That gives people more time. We don’t care about giving up some fee income, we want to be there for our members.”
The 53,000-member Florida Central re-introduced its Hurricane Loan, a short-term loan for as much as $2,000 at a rate that is half the credit union’s current unsecured loan rate and has lenient underwriting guidelines.
“We know many of our members need quick cash now,” Lister said.
Other Irma Developments
Meanwhile, on Tuesday morning, the League of Southeastern Credit Unions’ disaster recovery team held a conference call to coordinate next steps in reaching out to members impacted by Irma, said Communications Director Kim Gay.
“The LSCU is working today to contact all of our credit unions that were in the path of the storm. Because power and cell service is limited throughout the state, this may take a few days,” she said. “As status updates are received on credit union openings and closures, our website is being updated (www.lscu.coop).”
The league, which also serves CUs in Alabama, also has offices in Birmingham, Ala.
LSCU president/CEO Patrick La Pine said that as Florida continues to recover, the league’s first priority is to ensure that its staff and credit unions receive the assistance they need at this time.
“We want to help provide relief for immediate needs as we learn more about how each of our credit unions was affected,” La Pine said.
The League said it is ready to provide resources, including its mobile branch, and assistance as it learns of needs.
“The credit union community has already begun reaching out to the Southeastern Credit Union Foundation with monetary donations to help those who were severally affected,” noted Gay.
Elsewhere in the State
In the Florida Keys, which are served by Key West-based Keys FCU, an estimated 25% of homes have been destroyed, according to FEMA. Another 65% have suffered major damage, the agency added. "Basically, every house in the Keys was impacted some way," FEMA Administrator Brock Long said.
According to Keys Federal’s website, its branches remain closed. Authorities are only allowing residents of the upper Keys to return home.
In St. Petersburg, Fla., PSCU said its business continuity plans worked as anticipated. Although St. Petersburg lost power for 12 hours, a back-up generator kept its data center and other operations in continuous operation. PSCU said it ran its settlement process successfully from Phoenix, validating the ability to perform this critical operation from either data center. PSCU reported that approximately 1,300 PSCU-member CU branches were in the path of Hurricane Irma.
As CUToday.info reported earlier, PSCU, CUNA and CO-OP issued a combined announcement last week regarding a credit union system-wide disaster response effort. More information can be found here
The Department of Homeland Security estimated that as of Tuesday approximately 15 million people in Florida were without power. In Georgia, another 1.3 million people had no electricity, with power outages related to Irma also reported in South Carolina, North Carolina and Alabama.