Flooding at Gibson

[Dave W]

From http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2010/05/04/for-musical-nashville-flood-losses-are-still-untold/ (note: Gibson USA

At Gibson USA on Massman Drive and Soundcheck Nashville on Cowan St., the damage is enormous. Soundcheck is the biggest enclosed rehearsal studio in the world, and it houses instruments and tour sets. There'll be no access at waterlogged Soundcheck until at least Thursday, and Gibson was off limits as of Tuesday afternoon.

"Water did get into the factory," said Gibson USA general manager Gary Fader. "We have not had a chance to go into the building. There will be supply disruption for some amount of time."


from http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/backstage/89107-gibson-flooded-2.html, a post by Henry J. himself:

Yes the Gibson Nashville Plant is flooded. There is some product lost and production will be delayed for at least 2 weeks. There was not the amount of product lost as suggested, but we will know more in several days.

We are optimistic about getting back to producing and making up the shortfall. We have truly great people here.

Custom division, Epiphone, Montana and several other divisions were not impacted.

Henry Juszkiewicz
CEO

[Hornisse]

I just got an email from Gail Davies regarding that storage facility.  One bassist lost 50 instruments, many vintage pieces.

[gearHed289]

Yow! I was at Soundcheck a few years ago to measure the then new Digidesign Venue console. I've shipped a lot of cases there for various people. That sucks about the flooding.

[Dave W]

This can't help Gibson's financial situation either.

[Chris P.]

Bad news

[Highlander]

I don't know...

What were those comments about "Katrina" relics...  (with apologies)

I can only wish those (not only the Gibbie folks) affected, well...

[uwe]

Is Nashville that close to the sea level or what? I never envisaged it as a flood threatened region, but then Gibson obviously didn't either.

They hopefully have good insurances for this in place and haven't terminated those in the recent past to save money.

[Denis]

The entire middle US, from central Tennessee to areas into Nebraska and from Minnesota to the Gulf are very prone to flooding due to vast levees built around rivers to jeep the water out of farmland. When they flood, as they've done frequently the past 20 years, it's pretty ugly.

I wonder if this flood is going to push back any inclination Gibson will have to make the NRs, even though the Custom shop wasn't affected.

[Dave W]

I wonder if this flood is going to push back any inclination Gibson will have to make the NRs, even though the Custom shop wasn't affected.

I doubt it. OTOH the overall disruption may delay it.

[Lightyear]

The entire middle US, from central Tennessee to areas into Nebraska and from Minnesota to the Gulf are very prone to flooding due to vast levees built around rivers to jeep the water out of farmland. When they flood, as they've done frequently the past 20 years, it's pretty ugly.......

The rivers flooding have been going on since the begining of time - that is what makes the land all around the rivers so fertile and why people settled there.  The levees where built to keep the river out - like the Mississippi river levees - the rivers are going to continue to flood no matter how hard we try to stop it.  I forgot where I saw this but it was a map showing population densities of the US and it's amazing how we are all flocking to coastal areas and into the path of flooding - says the moron who's house is sitting six miles from Galveston Bay and about 19 miles from the Gulf of Mexico 

[Denis]

True enough, Lightyear. Perhaps I should have more accurately said that due to the levees, when the floods occur they are terrible because once past the levees, a lot of the water can't get back into the river, leaving areas flooded for much longer than they would have been had the water been able to flow back. It's just a bigger mess now...

As for me, I like living on a hill. During Hurricane Fran though, when 9 inches of rain fell in 4 hours, my basement flooded. Hard to fight that much water in that short a time.

[TBird1958]

I happened to be at Mike Lull's yesterday and the subject of Gibson came up - basically the company is all but bankrupt, let's hope it passes from Henry J's hands to an owner that cares.........

[Dave W]

I happened to be at Mike Lull's yesterday and the subject of Gibson came up - basically the company is all but bankrupt, let's hope it passes from Henry J's hands to an owner that cares.........

From what we know about its debtors and bond ratings, I suspect it could be that bad. If there's an ownership change, we can only hope the new owners are music industry people and not accountants or bankers.

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

Sure hope this doesn't mean Gibson is er going under.
One guy lost 50 basses? Damn. I'd like to hear more about that.

[TBird1958]

Not to be an alarmist but I was surprised at Mike's comments, it really doesn't sound good for the company as it exsists presently. The Lakland deal is a very rosey picture by comparison.