Hurricane Harvey: During crisis, Houston looks to its business leaders

Even before the damage from Hurricane Harvey is tallied, big corporations are breaking out their checkbooks.

Chevron, an energy giant with several offices in the Houston area, pledged $1 million to post-Harvey disaster relief efforts. So did Exxon Mobil and Dow Chemical, two companies with facilities hit by the storm. Companies in less regional industries also donated: Amazon offered to match $1 million in donations to the American Red Cross, while Verizon promised $10 million. Walmart, which took a front-line role in the clean-up after Hurricane Katrina, sent truckloads of emergency supplies to the affected area.

In all, corporations have pledged more than $65 million to help clean up the wreckage from Harvey, according to an estimate by the US Chamber of Commerce.

That is an impressive figure, and a sign that corporations are capable of stepping up in a crisis. Moody’s Analytics has estimated that the storm’s damage may be as much as $50 billion.

Houston’s business community should feel especially compelled to help. That is partly because Houston and Texas have been generous to big business in recent years, showering companies with tax breaks, subsidies and other perks in an effort to keep them happy and create new jobs. Houston has benefited from the presence of big corporations, adding thousands of jobs and becoming one of the fastest-growing cities in US. Those firms have benefited, too — sometimes to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

 Bob Mitchell, the president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, an organisation that represents local businesses, told me that Houston’s big businesses are generally “very supportive” of the local community.

“What’s going to happen in the weeks and months to come?” Mitchell asked. “To me, that’s more important than what’s happening right this minute.”

The donations announced for Harvey relief are generous by the standards of corporate philanthropy. Some of the donations are smaller, though, than the amounts many companies have gotten from the region’s generous economic development programmes.

Houston’s generosity stands out. Some of the biggest gifts have come under a programme known as the Texas Economic Development Act, which lets companies apply for property tax exemptions if they promise to create high-paying jobs. The programme, which has run up a total lifetime cost of roughly $7 billion since 2002, has benefited dozens of corporations in the Houston area. 

But the incentives also help corporate bottom lines. And after a major disaster like Harvey, it seems worth reminding companies that they have flourished, in part, thanks to the Houston area’s generosity.

Disaster relief isn’t limited to the private sector, of course. Billions of dollars in federal, state and local government money will also be needed to help the area recover from the flooding and other damage. 

Big businesses, which often have valuable supplies and resources, can still play a useful role. Corporations with offices in and around Houston can provide temporary housing to displaced residents, help transport supplies to flooded areas and offer support to small and medium-sized local businesses. Some could also chip in on big infrastructure projects, such as fortified levees, that would help protect the region from future storms.

These are still early days, of course, and history tells us that both damages and donation totals are likely to rise in the coming days. By the time Hurricane Katrina’s damage was tallied, Exxon Mobil had contributed more than $7 million to relief efforts, and BP had contributed $10 million.

It’s easy to be cynical about the idea of corporate philanthropy, especially in a time of disaster, when companies stand to burnish their images by giving back. But corporations helping Houston recover from the storm’s effects aren’t just acting altruistically or buffing their reputations. They are holding up their end of the deals they made, in which they got financial breaks in exchange for investing in local communities.

That investment has never been more vital than now, as companies weigh the responsibility of staying to help Houston versus the benefits of moving to less-waterlogged areas.

©2017 The New York Times News Service