Small Businesses Fight to Survive After Katrina

In the aftermath of Katrina, small businesses are struggling to survive and not shut their doors. What do they need to get back on their feet?

Reuters’ Ben Berkowitz is reporting that while no one knows how many small businesses along the Gulf Coast will fail because of the disaster, everyone involved with the reconstruction agrees “small operators need short-term support to stay afloat.”

“We're going to have to find a way to get some money in their hands immediately,” Michael Olivier, Louisiana's secretary of economic development, told Berkowitz. He also said a relief program could feature short-term loans of as much as $25,000 for as long as 90 days at rates to be determined. Loan recipients could repay once they got money from federal authorities or their insurance companies, Berkowitz says.

Berkowitz also says some businesses, particularly in the New Orleans area, have to start over from scratch post-hurricane.

“Most of my clients were primarily based in the New Orleans area,” Gil Hildebrand Jr., a computer consultant and software developer who has moved his operations to North Carolina while reconstruction is underway, told Berkowitz. “In New Orleans relationships are really the most important way to get business.”

To read the full article, click here: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=222648+14-Sep-2005+RTRS&srch=Ben+Berkowitz+