Business booming for private security: Firms help escort supplies and rescue files

By Terri Langford
Houston Chronicle
September 12, 2005

Perhaps someone to get your cat and your Lamborghini out of the French Quarter? After Katrina's storm waters flooded New Orleans, the city's moneyed and corporate elite reached for their cell phones and called people like David Nicastro, who owns one of the many private security and risk management firms that have descended on the city.

"We're getting requests for all kinds of things," said Nicastro, president of Secure Source Inc., a risk consulting firm in Southlake, near Fort Worth. "We're lining up transportation services, any need you might have. Porta-Johns to fuel and other things. Everything needs to be escorted in."

As federal troops and rescuers struggled to get to New Orleans and other ravaged Gulf Coast areas last week, convoys of private security and risk consulting firms, many made up of ex-military and former law enforcement officers, quickly arrived on the scene.

"We're actively engaged in New Orleans," said Jodie Rosenbloom, spokeswoman for Kroll Inc., the New York-based risk management consulting firm, which has a mix of corporate clients and the "high-net-worth individual." The company, which stresses it is not a private armed security firm, has offered all clients storm damage assessments of their office buildings.

Computer data retrieval has been a large part of Kroll's job. "Since the storm hit, we're offering free evaluations, we're telling them not to power up their waterlogged hard drives," Rosenbloom said. "We've been busy."

Private security guards, many armed, are doing everything from checking on individuals' houses to retrieving damaged computer files to pulling out luxury cars and photographing storm damage. "We're chartering aircraft and getting people into their homes," Nicastro said. "We're protecting large companies."

Most of the private security consultants have been hired by Louisiana and Mississippi businesses. "You're looking at energy companies, critical infrastructure type of calls, real estate management to provide security for the owner," said former FBI agent Bob Doguim, president of Safeguard Security Holdings Inc. in Houston.

Some companies are working with the government as volunteers and contractors as well as with individuals. North Carolina-based Blackwater USA, like other companies, took about a day to get in place in Louisiana, a lightening-speed mobilization compared with the one organized by local, state and federal governments.

"We're working with the Coast Guard as well as some private sector clients," Blackwater spokeswoman Ann Duke said. Some companies are providing individual homeowners with protection against looters. For $150, Secure Source will check on your house.

"They want someone to drive by a few times a day and make sure it's not being looted," Nicastro said. "Some have us actually sitting on property to protect it. Some we are escorting in and want to get back into their home." Armed security stationed at the home costs between $700 and $2,000 a day, Nicastro said.

Before Katrina hit, Louisiana had about 185 private security companies licensed in the state, according to Wayne Rogillio, executive secretary for the Louisiana State Board of Private Security Examiners. By Friday, 33 more companies had registered.

John Moritz, who owns Moritz and Associates, a security firm in Houston, said Louisiana officials have been helpful and welcoming to private security personnel. "If you're properly licensed and all of your ducks are in a row, you can get over there," said Moritz, whose security personnel were hired to guard Gulf Coast casinos.

Until New Orleans engineers are able to pump out the floodwaters, security companies will continue to pour into the city and work with businesses and homeowners in retrieving and protecting their belongings.

"We're getting requests for all kinds of things," Nicastro said. "We've had one person who called to say, 'I've got my Lamborghini in the French Quarter, and I have to get it out.' " The client told Nicastro he only cared about his cat and car.

Labels: Kroll, Louisiana