Thirty US scrap sites in hurricane area likely heavily damaged

New York (Platts)--2Sep2005

About 30 scrap metal processing plants and scrapyards in Louisiana,
southern Mississippi and southwestern Alabama were likely to be heavily
damaged by Hurricane Katrina, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycing
Industries. "These locations sustained the kind of damage we've been seeing on
television," ISRI spokesman Chuck Carr told Platts Friday morning, referring
to scenes of Gulf of Mexico towns and cities leveled by Katrina.
     He said information on the damage and the whereabouts and health of the
workers at the locations was unavailable. "We have not heard from many of our
members" in the hurricane-struck area, he said. Another 50 or so ISRI member
sites in these states also suffered some damage, but details were also
unavailable.
     ISRI has about 1,200 members involved in ferrous and non-ferrous scrap
metal industry, with some involved in plastics, rubber and paper recycling.
ISRI had donated $5,000 to the American Red Cross for its Katrina rescue
effort and its Gulf Coast chapter, based in Houston, will also be donating
money to the hurricane response effort, Carr said. The Gulf Coast chapter's
president was not immediately available for comment.
     Four days after the killer storm slammed into the US Gulf Coast, New
Orleans was still plagued by gunbattles and rapes, with gangs of looters and
carjackers roving the streets and bodies just left lying by the roadside, AFP
reported Friday morning.

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