Hurricane Sandy

In eighth grade I had to pick an independent study project. It was the '80s, the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, and it was cool to emulate Family Ties' Alex P. Keaton (ok, maybe not cool, but cool enough for me), so I picked investing. This was before online brokers, before E-Trade, even before the Internet, so my dad took me down to the local Sears. That's right. Sears.

It was all very surprising. I had seen Sandy’s damage on television, I had heard the stories of those on the ground, and affected businesses had called our Help Desk, but still a part of me didn’t believe it. The media sometimes has a tendency to exaggerate, and I figured that they found the most damaged houses and kept showing them on TV. I figured that the media’s East Coast (especially NY) bias played a role as did the rarity of hurricanes in the Northeast. But I was wrong.

According to the Small Business Administration up to 90% of small businesses get the majority of their business from within two miles of their front doors. With so many displaced people following Superstorm Sandy, BCLC estimates that between 60,000 to 100,000 small businesses have already been negatively impacted and as many as 30% of them will fail in the coming months.

We've seen this story play out before. ... We saw a predictable boom/bust cycle.

Think back to one month ago. If you were on the Eastern Seaboard you were probably closely tracking Sandy’s path and wondering how it would affect you. In other parts of the country, your news outlets offered you two stories and probably not much else: “Super Storm” Sandy and the elections.

In this week's Points of Light "NewsFlash" e-newsletter, Points of Light's Disaster Services Director, Kellie Bentz, shared the following message. We thought you would find helpful it helpful as the response to Hurricane Sandy continues to unfold. 

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, volunteers are stepping up to help those who have lost so much.

//Editor's Note: This is cross-posted from IEDC and is written by Carrie Mulcaire, IEDC. In recent years BCLC has partnered with IEDC on multiple economic impact assessment projects in disaster-affected communities.//

Superstorm Sandy has inflicted unprecedented damage on the East Coast, leaving many Americans without housing, food or access to basic needs. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross have been at the forefront of first response efforts and corporations have already pledged more than $62 million, two-thirds of it in the form of direct monetary donations to first responder organizations.

//This article first appeared on the FedEx Community Involvement blog. It is written by Michael L. Ducker, President, International, FedEx.//