Patrick Cudahy Fire and the Economic Diaster Still to Come

Today, the Patrick Cudahy meatpacking company in Cudahy, WI, burned today. The fire continues to rage out of control and the place has been on fire since Sunday, at about 7:45PM PST. The fire department hopes to put the fire out in another 24-36 hours with the help of up to 30 fire area departments. "About 5 p.m. Monday, more than 20 hours into the effort, officials projected it would take another 24 to 36 hours of firefighting to douse the flames in a sprawling complex of 1.4 million square feet, built over more than a century. Officials suspect the fire started in an unused area in the plant and may have been fueled by cardboard and plastic packaging materials in a nearby storage space.
"This fire happened to get into a couple of void spaces and traveled very quickly and was very difficult to put out with all the different construction methods that were used over the years to add on to this building," said Gary Posda, a Cudahy Fire Department battalion chief. "We are gaining ground, but we still have a ways to go."
Workers smelled smoke in the plant and called 911 about 9:25 p.m. Sunday. They and about a dozen other workers in a skeleton overnight crew escaped without injuries"
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/50091637.html
This will have a devastating impact in the Milwaukee County area- now and in the future.
First, the cost of putting out the fire will deplete the emergency services budgets in the surrounding areas. Overtime for the fire departments involved will be tremendous. Overtime for the police department will also deplete the budgets of the local communities. Then you include DPW workers and other city employees, school district costs and other costs such as fuel, water, supplies, reimbursing other responding fire departments for their expenses and other things will be overwhelming.
Businesses around the plant have been shut down until things clear out, so those companies and businesses have lost at least a day or 2 of production and lost business, including a couple of bars I used to go to.
Then you have about 1400 union workers who now find themselves unemployed and will be collecting unemployment compensation. Hopefully, they will be called back to work soon, but there is no guarantee that will happen any time soon, if ever. This will impact the state in income tax collections and unemployment compensation payments.
I am sure Patrick Cudahy pays a huge property tax to the city and school district. If they cut back or leave, Cudahy will suffer more monetary losses.
Another bad sign for the factory in Cudahy, is that the owner of Patrick Cudahy, Smithfield Foods, says plants around the country can handle the production loss. If this is true, then what incentive would Smithfield Foods have to rebuild?
Having driven by the plant to go some of my watering holes, I was impressed by the size of the plant. Having toured other meat packing plants, I know the workers are very hard workers in dangerous and physically hard work. I hope the plant comes back stronger than ever, however, considering the economic and tax climate, along with the unnecessary regulation of businesses in the State of Wisconsin, I don't hold out too much hope.