At least three major hurricanes are predicted this year, according to the AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center. That’s not all: If the meteorologists are right, Gulf Coast hotels may weather as many as a dozen other serious storms during the June to November hurricane season.

The question, as always, is where and, thus, which hotels may be effected. Accor North America, with 50 Gulf Coast hotels from Florida to Texas, is ready to deal with dangerous storms and their aftermath. Not surprisingly, their preparedness strategy springs from experiences during 2005’s whopper, Hurricane Katrina. Katrina was the sixth strongest and among the five deadliest hurricanes on record. Twenty of Accor’s properties were damaged during the catastrophe and a property in Biloxi was wiped off the map.

Sue Macgregor, Accor’s vice president of risk management.

Accor’s hurricane preparedness plan focuses on three key areas: people, property and restoring business. Managers have a matrix that highlights what to do before, during and after a massive storm.

“We need to partner between departments because we all play an integral role in taking care of people and then, once the storm passes, on opening the doors again,” says Sue MacGregor, vice president of risk management for Dallas-based Accor North America. With more than 15,000 employees Accor operates more than 1,000 hotels nationwide.

“The most important thing is that our employees and guests are safe,” says MacGregor. Referring to post-Katrina hurricanes, she says, “We’ve made the decision at the corporate level, during previous storms, to evacuate long before a city announces the decision.”

Unlike an earthquake or tsunami, tropical storms and hurricanes build over time. That gives management time to prepare and anticipate action. “We’ll talk about where our people will go in case of evacuation,” she says. That may mean local shelters or an Accor property further inland.

People are always first. “We have even taken in employees and families if their homes have been damaged,” she says. After all, the hotel needs employees and employees need both shelter and jobs. To make that flow during a chaotic time, each property maintains a list of emergency contact numbers for employees.

The company also puts a hotline in place. “It’s something else we learned from Hurricane Katrina,” says the vice president of risk management. “With a staffed hotline, employees can check in. They can get information about the property, other people and their jobs.”

Hurricane Katrina damaged 20 Accor properties on the Gulf Coast. The property in Biloxi had to be completely rebuilt.

Phone lists, phone lines and shelter require more involvement than the simplest pre-season action: Checking supplies of batteries, flashlights, an emergency radio and blue painter’s tape. Yes, blue painter’s tape. It’s used to cover electronic door locks to keep out water. It’s used around door seals. The tape does as well as duct tape, says MacGregor, only better since it doesn’t leave a sticky residue that requires staff hours for clean up.

Local operators know, like most folks in hurricane zones, to secure potential flying objects. That can be as simple as tossing pool furniture into a pool during the storm.

General managers, as expected, will have a lot on their plate during and after a storm emergency. Not just the property, of course, but their own families and properties. Combined with re-opening a property, that can be overwhelming.

That’s where corporate can ease the process. “We can do things behind the scenes to make it easier on that person at the property,” she says. Among those is, corporate payroll making sure property employees are paid and, when necessary, arranging alternative locations for paycheck pickup.

“We check on supplies,” says MacGregor, “to make sure we have adequate things, like linens, for when we restore the business.”

Knowing in advance what security and restoration companies are available also helps.

“If we have damage to a building that’s shut down, we’ll need to call in security to be sure it’s not looted or vandalized,” she says. “Or, we’ll call in extra security if we have a lot of people on property. During Katrina, we had three Baton Rouge properties full of people who had evacuated. They were there for quite a while.”

Preparation helps people, property and gets the business running quickly. “We can re-open a property 25-percent faster,” says MacGregor.