Online tool created to help businesses recover from natural disasters

According to a recent survey by FEMA, 40% of businesses never recover from hurricanes and other severe weather conditions and disasters.

The Manatee County Government hopes to help reduce that statistic.

This week, local legislatures announced a new tool to organize and aid those who own businesses, should an emergency happen — the Business Recovery Directory.

The network allows those who register to appear in the directory to provide services and products for their community and help keep dollars circulated locally during "catastrophies." 

Those behind creating the web-based bulletin board, also stress the importance of being able to assess the damage of the business community post-storm, by encouraging business owners to communicate through the directory. The data gathered from the website will later be relayed to state and federal agencies for relief support.

For more information, visit public.mymanatee.org/vendor_esr/dao/recovery.html.

Contact Amanda Sebastiano at [email protected].