diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSZKFailoverController.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSZKFailoverController.java
index e0a4f70f301..f1f45a14614 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSZKFailoverController.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/tools/DFSZKFailoverController.java
@@ -189,9 +189,9 @@ public class DFSZKFailoverController extends ZKFailoverController {
     
     GenericOptionsParser parser = new GenericOptionsParser(
         new HdfsConfiguration(), args);
-    DFSZKFailoverController zkfc = DFSZKFailoverController.create(
-        parser.getConfiguration());
     try {
+      DFSZKFailoverController zkfc = DFSZKFailoverController.create(
+          parser.getConfiguration());
       System.exit(zkfc.run(parser.getRemainingArgs()));
     } catch (Throwable t) {
       LOG.fatal("DFSZKFailOverController exiting due to earlier exception "