In October of 2012, more than 60 million residents of the United States felt the impact of Hurricane Sandy, what meteorologists described as a perfect storm that slammed into New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of Columdia, Virginia, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and many other states. The blustering combination of extremely high winds, torrential rain and blizzard-like snow caused major destruction of homes, stores, boats, and cars. The indirect losses | are even greater, including lost wages, lost restaurant sales, ‘ost tax revenue, canceled flights, and canceled cruises.
The stock market on Wall Street was shut down for two entire days, freezing trade. Power outages and structural damages to infrastructure such as roads will take a long ume to repair. An initial estimate of the economic losses imposed by Hurricane Sandy is about $35-$45 billion.
There were short term upsides for some businesses to the super storm as residents of the affected areas made runs on grocery and hardware stores in the days proceeding landfall—clearing out aisles containing batteries, flashlights, canned goods, toilet paper, ice, alcohol, snacks, bottled water, and other emergency items such as electric generators. The only arguable economic winners from the super storm were retail outlets. However, for many small businesses, catastrophic storms are mixed blessings. If a business experiences power loss, it may have to shut down because of inadequate lighting or climate control, inoperability of equipment, lost sales, flooding, repairs, and wasted inventory when products spoil without proper storage. Storms can lead to the involuntary creation of waste.
Imagine that you work for a general store in a small town and your manager has asked you to prepare an inventory needs estimate for the coming winter season.
Meteorologists predict it is going to be a very cold, long, and harsh winter, with high probability of blizzardlike conditions that could knock out power for extended periods of time.
Questions for Case Study 

1. How many perishable goods like meat and milk should be kept on site in the freezer? How many portable electric generators should be ordered from the manufacturer?
2. Given the high likelihood that local customers will make a run on the store in case of an ice storm—which can occur all of the sudden, offering you little time to prepare—how do you decide how much inventory to keep in stock?
3. Is it worthwhile to reach out to the local government and utility companies in order to prepare for harsh winter conditions and develop a disaster preparedness plan?