By: Jim McKay and Marty Pastula on November 28, 2011, Emergencymgmt.com
On April 27, Robert Bentley’s 100th day in office as governor of Alabama, more than 50 tornadoes slammed the state, killing 243 people, severely damaging or destroying more than 15,000 homes and causing property damage estimated at between $2 billion and $5 billion. It was the deadliest tornado day since the 1925 Tri-State tornadoes and one of the costliest natural disasters in history.
Bentley earned praise for his leadership and decisive nature in response to the storms.Emergency Management magazine sat down with Bentley in August to discuss the state’s response to the tornadoes and the ongoing recovery efforts.
...How do you facilitate the recovery of the business community?
The [U.S. Small Business Administration] came in and set up in every area to help with small business loans. We also did some things to facilitate that with some of our manufacturing jobs. For instance, up at Hackleburg, where an EF5 tornado totally destroyed the town, we worked with the Wrangler plant there to not only save the 150 jobs in that small town, but because of the incentives and the package that we put together, we talked them into expanding to 200 jobs. That was one industry that we felt we had to save because if we did not save Wrangler, then Hackleburg would have disappeared.
Tuscaloosa had 1,000 businesses that were destroyed and 7,500 jobs were lost. But many of those have already started reopening and after their long-term plan for the city takes place, then those will be rebuilt and most of them had insurance. We did see a spike in our unemployment [in July], and I expect it to a go a little higher [in September].
It has been estimated that we will have about 50,000, at least temporary, jobs because of this rebuilding effort, and if that takes place it will bring our unemployment rate — which is at 9.9 percent — down to probably 7 percent. A lot of those are temporary jobs, but longtime permanent jobs will increase because there is stimulation in the economy with all the rebuilding taking place.
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