State launches program guiding businesses through disaster prep

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency launched a program this month that small businesses can follow to prepare for future weather disasters.The ReadyTN Business program, which is available step-by-step at TEMA's website, was created in collaboration with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance. The program is asynchronous and would amount to about one hour of work a week over the course of four weeks.Any paperwork or materials completed through the program would be submitted to TEMA and compiled into a TEMA database for businesses to be officially designated as Certified ReadyTN business. Paperwork for the program includes creating a continuity plan that has points of contact for business staff and conducting a business risk assessment."That allows us to communicate with those businesses immediately after a disaster, so that we can start pushing recovery resources to them.We can find out if they've been damaged, we can find out if they're able to continue to serve their community," TEMA's Non-Governmental Partnerships Manager Kate Amaral said."The reason for that is not to be intrusive or anything like that. We want to be able to push them the right resources, within, I would say, hours of knowing of a disaster," she said.Businesses are also encouraged to connect with their local officials as part of the program, like the local chamber and emergency management agency. The goal, Amaral said, is to encourage locally-led recovery in the immediate aftermath of a disaster."When we look at a holistic picture of community-led recovery, what we find is that our small businesses and our faith-based communities are often the first to serve," she said."Think of it this way: you have a small mom and pop restaurant that is well known in the community, right? They may not be damaged. Maybe they have a power outage, but they're still feeding their community. We want to be able to connect with that business, to find out if they're still open and serving their community, and any barriers that they may have to recovering or continuing to help the community."TEMA will also host quarterly webinars and monthly newsletters as part of their overall "Ready to Recover" initiative, as well as other in-person events about disaster recovery throughout the month.The agency started working on the business program before Hurricane Helene hit the northeast part of the state last year."We wanted to make that basic program available to any business, whether it employs one person or it employs 500 people. We wanted it to be that basic point where people could start to think about preparedness," said Amaral.According to 2020 U.S. Census data, about 1.2 million people were employed by small businesses in Tennessee. About 25% of small businesses don't recover from disaster, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.Amaral said those statistics are, in part, why TEMA wanted to launch the program. The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry and National Weather Service Nashville field office also contributed in gathering information about what hazards small businesses should plan for when it comes to disaster."The huge economic impact that has happened in Northeast Tennessee really inspired me to look further into it and bring those partners . . . to the table," she said.It's part of an overall initiative the agency is taking up this September to encourage state residents to prepare for weather disasters. The agency is encouraging people to take "small steps" to prepare for a disaster. That information is available at TEMA's website and social media platforms."We can't tell people how to prepare, because that looks different based on everyone's own situations. If we can provide them with the tools and encourage them and empower them to maybe just have a conversation with their family of, you know, 'Where's our kit? Do we need to build a kit? What would we do if we had severe weather? Where would we go?' Then maybe that's a win for us this month," said Melissa Egan, TEMA community relations officer.TEMA and the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance will host a webinar about the ReadyTN initiative on Sept. 24.Jorgelina Manna-Rea is an environmental reporter at Six Rivers Media through Report for America.