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Pulse, the EFT network, and Cardtronics Inc., the world's largest ATM ISO, experienced little disruption to business operations from Hurricane Ike, a Category 2 storm that wrought destruction in parts of Texas over the weekend.
Both Houston-based companies avoided interruption by enacting business-continuity
plans, which included transferring key operations and personnel to cities further inland
when it became apparent Ike would strike the Houston area.
The hurricane, which authorities downgraded Monday to a tropical depression, disabled approximately 327 ATMs owned or operated by Cardtronics. The ATMs, located in the Houston and Galveston areas, were not operating because of electrical outages and downed communications lines, J. Christopher Brewster, Cardtronics chief financial officer, said in a statement issued Monday. "We expect these machines to return to service as the issues are addressed in the coming days," Brewster said of the interrupted utilities.
Ike's 100 mile-per-hour winds knocked down buildings, while dumping 16 inches of
rain. Floods ravaged Galveston and Bolivar, barrier islands south of Houston.
Nearly 4 million residents were without electricity in Texas and Louisiana, although
crews restored power to some Houston suburbs Monday.
Cardtronics, which owned or operated 32,801 ATMs at the end of the second quarter June 30, says it ATMs achieve uptime of 98.3% to 99.55%. The company's 32,700 ATMs not in the Houston metropolitan area achieved those levels, officials noted.
As Hurricane Ike headed for the Houston area, Cardtronics employed its
business continuity plan, moving key operations and personnel to backup sites
in Dallas and Portland, Ore., Jack Antonini, Cardtronics CEO, said in a statement. The
storm did not damage Cardtonics headquarters, and the company planned to
move operations back to Houston this week, Antonini says.
Meanwhile, Pulse, operates dual-debit card processing platforms in Houston and
Dallas, Steve Sievert, a Pulse spokesperson, tells ATM&Debit News. "When it became
apparent Hurricane Ike was going to strike Houston, we switched processing to our
Dallas facility," Sievert says.
As a result, Pulse's processing continued without disruption, and the systems continue to function normally over the company's Dallas processing platform, the
company said in a statement.
Pulse processes transactions for 4,500 banks, credit unions and savings institutions
nationwide.Pulse leases office space in aHouston office building, and Sievert did
not know if it had been damaged.
The Pulse and Cardtronics business continuity plans are not unusual for companies
located in the hurricane alley states of Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia,
Alabama, and North and South Carolina, observers say.
Pulse put together a business-continuity plan before 2000, and Cardtronics has
had a plan for "some time," Joel Antonini, the company's spokesperson, tells
ATM&Debit News from Dallas, where he and his family went to escape the storm.
Other business-continuity plans are more recent. For example, Triton Systems
of Delaware Inc., the Long Beach, Miss.- based ATM manufacturer, wrote a business-
continuity plan in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina forced the company to close the Long Beach facilities for two weeks.
Triton put its plan into action earlier this month as Hurricane Gustav bore
down on New Orleans. The company shipped two truckloads of ATMs to a
facility it opened in Memphis, Tenn., after Hurricane Katrina. Memphis
employees are trained to take customer orders, and the Memphis facility remains
open should the Long Beach facility lose electricity, says Alicia Blanda, the company
spokesperson. Memphis is a parts warehouse, technical-
support center, and a repair and training facility, Blanda says.
