Pittsburgh — US steelmakers with operations in the Carolinas and Virginia were taking steps Tuesday to prepare for the potential effects of Hurricane Florence, expected to make landfall Friday.
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Register NowHurricane Florence is predicted to be one of the most severe storms to hit the US East Coast in years, with a likely landfall in the Carolinas. Then, it is expected to slow down and bring potentially catastrophic flooding to inland areas.
As a result of the storm, Liberty Steel has suspended operations at its wire rod mill in Georgetown, South Carolina, a spokesman for the company said Tuesday.
"In the interest of safety, we evacuated the Georgetown site at noon [Tuesday], having shut down all equipment in an orderly way," Liberty Steel spokesman Eoghan Mortell said, adding the company will provide additional information as it becomes available.
Nucor, which has several facilities in the Carolinas and Virginia, is complying with evacuation orders, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.
"At Nucor, safety is our top priority. ... We are closely monitoring the storm and each Nucor division has an emergency action plan in place that they are following," Nucor spokeswoman Katherine Miller said. "We are complying with evacuation orders in areas that are subject to them, so that Nucor teammates can focus on keeping their families and homes safe. Two of our steel mills in the Carolinas, Nucor Steel Berkeley and Nucor Steel Hertford, will have an orderly suspension of operations as the storm passes. Operations will resume when it is determined that it is safe to do so."
The suspension of operations is not expected to impact customer orders, she said.
Nine primary steel mills are in the path of the storm, totaling about 9.8 million st/year of raw steelmaking capacity, or about 8% of total steel capacity in the US.
--Justine Coyne, justine.coyne@spglobal.com
--Edited by Annie Siebert, ann.siebert@spglobal.com