BUSINESSES URGED TO AID DISASTER PLANNING; CITY NEEDS EXPERTISE, SAYS MAYOR

The business community can take a leadership role in helping Cape Girardeau plan for future disasters, Mayor Al Spradling III said Tuesday.

Spradling urged business leaders to become involved in Project Impact, the initiative to make Cape Girardeau a disaster-resistant city.

Spradling and other city officials along with representatives from the State Emergency Management Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency met with business leaders Tuesday at a Project Impact luncheon to outline the program.

Cape Girardeau is the first Project Impact community in Missouri and one of a handful designated nationwide for the initiative.

"My history has shown me that private industry, as opposed to government, has the best answers, the best solutions to problems," Spradling said.

Traditionally, he said, government is "not a very good manager. Business, on the other hand, has had a tendency over the years to be efficient, innovative and have the expertise within its group to point us in the direction that we need to be pointed in."

Protecting the business sector is crucial to the whole community's recovery after a disaster, Spradling said.

"A disaster to our retail or industrial facilities not only will have an impact on the individual business but on the complete community, because we run this community and our city, our police, our fire, all of our services principally from our sales taxes," he said.

If business can't produce revenue and sales taxes, there will be no revenue on which to operate city services, Spradling said.

"If we have a disaster that wipes out our retail centers, we're hurting all the way around," he said.

The city needs the business community's support, input and participation in the Project Impact initiative, Spradling said. It almost might need its financial support through low-interest loans for mitigation efforts or through taking steps to make their facilities disaster resistant or setting up contingency plans, he said.

The city can receive up to $500,000 in federal seed money for disaster mitigation.

The local match could come in partnerships with business and industry through a bond issue or a variety of other sources, city manager Mike Miller said.

The city has established a disaster-resistant community steering committee with subcommittees to address business loss prevention, education, hazard identification, mitigation and other topics, said Walter Denton, who coordinates the disaster-resistant community effort.

Creating a strong partnership between the public and private sectors is "the most important element" in making a community disaster resistant, said Jerry B. Uhlmann, SEMA director.

Grand Forks, N.D., lost nearly 30 percent of its businesses after devastating flooding last year, Uhlmann said.

"The businesses are no longer there, the employment is no longer there, and on the other side the workers that industry needs have moved away," he said.

Nationally, more than $4 billion is spent every year to clean up the aftermath of disasters such as floods, earthquakes and tornadoes, Uhlmann said.

Project Impact takes the approach of identifying and correcting hazards before the disaster occurs to minimize the amount of loss, he said.

Businesses can set up contingency plans on how to respond to a disaster. Many hospitals, nursing homes and major manufacturers already have disaster response plans, said John Miller, Region VII director for FEMA.

"But nobody talks to one another to see how to integrate with the public sector," he said.

Local government and local businesses have to take the lead in Project Impact, Miller said, because they know what their needs and risks are.

"You're going to be the model," he said. "We're going to stub our toes a little bit, because this is a whole new concept for the federal government, to say the locals know what they're doing."

Disaster-preparedness programs offer a number of advantages for communities, Miller said, including improved bond ratings for cities and school districts, lower fire insurance rates and improved economic development.

The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce has already signed on to participate in Project Impact, said executive director John Mehner.

Mehner said he has seen "some pretty scary statistics" on business recovery rates in communities stricken by major disasters.

To make sure the city's business community recovers, he said, each entity has to identify its own needs. There needs to be a larger system set up to identify financial institutions, contractors, heavy equipment needed for cleanup "and utilities and the telephones and all the things that are going to be necessary," he said.

Project Impact is a great opportunity for the community, Mehner said.