In North Carolina, small business owners operating in the state’s eastern coastal region know it is likely only a matter of time before a hurricane disrupts their businesses and lives. But such storms are also increasingly targeting the western portion of the state in or around the Appalachian mountains, most notably on September 27, 2024, when Hurricane Helene inflicted historic flooding, high winds, tornados and mudslides that resulted in at least 108 deaths and nearly $79 billion in damages in the western portion of the state.
Botanical Treasures Nursery in Fletcher, North Carolina, was one severely impacted business. Within a day, $2 million worth of plants were flooded and destroyed, and owner Robert Stine was scrambling for solutions to save his business. Much of the relief assistance that would help him rebuild Botanical Treasures came through the efforts of Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC), located in Flat Rock some 21 miles away.
Ben Smith, director of BRCC’s Small Business Center (SBC), provided Botanical Treasures small business disaster relief counseling that included guidance on loss assessments and accessing local and regional disaster grant opportunities. BRCC also provided services to other storm-affected businesses, including temporary incubator space at the SBC for three to six months after Helene damaged or destroyed their physical locations.
“Without their help, we wouldn’t be good now,” Stine says. “They put the word out, and we started getting many phone calls from faith-based groups, churches, synagogues, to volunteer help to help us clean up, and we ended up having in excess of 450 different volunteers here throughout the course of quite a few months. In addition, their assistance with grant applications was very helpful because I’ve never ever looked for grant money since I built this company — I’ve paid for everything as I went along.”
When disaster strikes, small businesses with few employees and limited financial resources are often hit hard. And increasingly, weather-related disasters are appearing in unexpected regions across the country. But in North Carolina, no matter where disaster strikes, the state’s Small Business Center Network (SBCN), composed of SBCs in each of the state’s 58 community colleges, have those businesses covered, helping them to prepare for disasters and recover from them once they occur.
The details of a response
“Many other business owners faced with the kind of losses that he experienced would have decided to walk away, but that’s not what Robert did,” Smith says of Stine. “He decided to rebuild.”
SBC counselor Gary Heisey met with Stine 13 times over the next 25 days, working to navigate a number of issues, Smith says. Heisey helped Stine identify his losses and complete applications for grants, several of which he secured. He also supported Stine in identifying the business’ top-performing plants, enabling Botanical Treasures to quickly replenish moveable inventory. Additionally, Heisey helped Stine negotiate with suppliers to extend payment timelines and provided guidance regarding unemployment claims.
Blue Ridge’s SBC was also a founding partner of Transylvania Tomorrow and LoveHendo — two separate task forces which were created to respond to disaster needs by providing microgrants to businesses in their respective counties.
Transylvania Tomorrow initially raised and distributed $250,000 in 2020 to 111 businesses that might otherwise have closed their doors in Transylvania County during Covid due to lack of cash flow, Smith notes. That program was rebooted during Hurricane Helene and distributed $145,000 to 58 businesses in the county. LoveHendo, a similar task force in neighboring Henderson County, raised $272,000 in distributed grants to more than 90 businesses in the weeks following the hurricane.
The power of a network
SBCN provides an instructive example of what is possible when a state invests heavily in building out a robust community college system; North Carolina’s community college system is the third-largest in the country and boasts a community college in every county.
In addition to disaster counseling, SBCN provides services that include free training, free confidential business counseling, and resource and referral information for a wide variety of business planning and functions, including starting up, launching, marketing, accessing capital and accounting services, says Anne Shaw, statewide director of SBCN. All assistance that the centers provide to businesses is paid with state funding and is free of charge to recipients.
Smith says BRCC’s Small Business Center provides two different primary types of resources to clients: small business training, classes, events, workshops, attended by hundreds of business owners each year, and one-on-one counseling to, on average, 100 or so clients every year.
The college’s SBC provided 550 hours of counseled to 158 businesses related to Hurricane Helene, SBCN figures show.
Plugging small businesses into communities
One of the most important roles of SBCs is to help businesses make connections and plug into the needs and resources of local communities.
Such connections were vital to help Lake Hickory Pub & Marina recover from Hurricane Helene, which left the pub and landside structures standing but obliterated the marina and boats attached to it, according to Dan Kelly, who owns the business with wife, Meagen. The Kellys bought the business and moved from Minnesota in March 2024, and arrived knowing virtually no one in the community.
“So we woke up the morning of the hurricane, and we had about 62 boats and five docks, and when we went to bed that night, we had no boats and no docks,” says Kelly, noting losses were ultimately tallied at between $600,000 to $800,000. “The biggest thing that we were dealing with was just kind of how to rebound, and then also just what sort of aid and resources would be available. We already had a relationship with [SBC before], but after we were really leaning on them for different tools and resources to be able to rebound after the storm.”
Carmela Tomlinson, SBC director at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute (CCC&TI) in Hudson, North Carolina, helped with the Pub & Marina’s recovery by increasing general awareness of other resources — state, federal and local — that might be available to them and by assisting in completing and submitting grant and loan applications, which resulted in two grants totaling $30,000 and a $100,000 loan, Kelly says.
Part of the strategy put in place was to shift operations toward the food and beverages side of the business, including the pub and an ice cream stand, since the marina’s boat docking and watercraft rental services would take eight months to repair. A lot rode on the success of that effort because the previous owners had closed the business in winter, whereas the Kellys’ business model kept it open. That led them to introduce more events such as wine tastings, bourbon tastings, bingo and live music, Kelly says.
Peer connections
Also helpful was Tomlinson’s earlier assistance connecting the Kellys to several other similar businesses in the community to help provide a peer group to answer questions and provide suggestions for best practices for the Pub & Marina. That and other connections ultimately paid off through help from the surrounding community, including volunteer work helping them rebuild the docks after the storm, notes Meagen Kelly.
“It was just not feeling like we were alone; other people were looking out for opportunities for us to survive through that and get back on our feet,” she says. “We’d never done food costing, or how do you manage a kitchen, so for those kind of things that we didn’t know, we could hook up with someone within the SBC network that had experience in that, and that was able to help guide us through.”
Tomlinson says the CCC&TI Small Business Center helped 10 to 20 businesses after Hurricane Helene in the college’s service area.
