ORONO – The owner was in Germany and out of touch with the media when Hurricane Katrina came ashore and ravaged the Gulf Coast, but that didn’t stop Byer Manufacturing from responding to inquires to assist in relief efforts.

Tucked away in a downtown Orono building, Byer of Maine has been manufacturing camp furniture since 1880 and serves a worldwide market.

Owner and president Jay Shields was in Germany on business when Katrina struck and had no idea how extensive the damage was until a few days later. While Shields was still overseas, a customer in Tennessee and a sales representative in New York made arrangements to ship 1,400 Byer cots to a relief shelter in Nashville, Tenn.

“Through one of our customers, we had an inquiry [for cots] over the Labor Day weekend,” Shields said.

The details were worked out over the weekend and a Dysart’s driving team picked up the load and the cots were set up at the shelter in Nashville on Thursday morning.

More cots were picked up at a later date by an industrial supply company in New Jersey.

“He drove through that night to be here in the morning,” Shields said, noting the driver immediately turned around and headed back.

In all, the Orono business has shipped out about 2,000 cots in response to the hurricane. As a small business, donating that many cots wasn’t financially feasible, and although no exact dollar figure was available, Shields said the cots were sold at a fair price.

“We certainly wouldn’t charge extra because there was an urgent need,” he said.

This time of year, Byer doesn’t have a lot of stock on hand. The company supplies mostly to outdoor and camping equipment retailers, and the demand is low in the fall.

“As a matter of business practice, we don’t have a lot of inventory at this time of year,” Shields said.

The owner said it’s heart-wrenching not to be able to respond to the magnitude of demand, but as part of the natural, normal seasonality of his business, production is slowed down in the fall.

Shields noted that in most cases, there isn’t a lot of foresight when planning for disaster relief.

“The disaster will strike and the phone will begin to ring,” he said.

That is starting to change, however, as states begin to plan ahead of time for anticipated disasters, such as earthquakes in California. Relief supplies, such as cots, are being purchased in advance to be stored at hospitals and other facilities until needed.

“This is an initiative that is only coincidentally happening at the same time as the disaster in New Orleans,” Shields said. “That is something that can be said for what our country is doing in disaster relief preparedness.”

Shields said Byer Manufacturing has no plans to send more cots south, but is preparing to replenish the inventory of retailers from across the country who also responded to Katrina relief efforts.

“In the weeks and months after this, our customers out there who have had our product have also had their inventory depleted,” he said.