Emergency management urges preparedness

Daniel Hahn, Santa Rosa County emergency management plans chief, advised businesses to be prepared for disasters for their own good on Friday during the Navarre Beach Area Chamber of Commerce's Commerce and Coffee breakfast.

Hahn showed the Chamber crowd a BERT, business emergency response toolkit, which is full of helpful information and tools to make sure businesses can reopen as soon as possible after a disaster.

"Statistically, something like 40 percent of businesses that close for more than two weeks never reopen," he said, adding that many businesses don't consider things like not being able to recover computer files. "This helps you think about those things so your business can be up and running as fast as possible."

Because of business sponsors, Hahn said it only cost $8,500 to make 2,500 of the BERT bags for businesses. Only $1,400 of county tax money was used to produce the bags and businesses and one church paid between $500 -$1,000 each to sponsor the bags.

 For more on this story, see the Oct. 6 issue of Navarre Press or subscrbe online.