When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, one of the areas hardest hit was the port along the Mississippi River. New Orleans Cold Storage (NOCS), the largest poultry exporter in the country, operated a cold storage facility there that was completely destroyed by the storm. The implications of this were serious. Not only does NOCS supply a large quantity of poultry to the United States and abroad, it is also a critical component of the New Orleans regional economy, supporting 230 jobs for the Port of New Orleans (PONO) and 120 jobs for NOCS. The Henry Clay Avenue Wharf Project functions as a regional import/export hub for the City of New Orleans. Temperature-sensitive products arrive via trucks for blast-freezing and/or cold storage warehousing in an insulated on-dock building until exported via dockside handling directly into refrigerated ships berthed adjacent to the facility.