Tornadoes and Pandemics, oh my!

Gentle Reader,

It’s been quite a week here in Middle Tennessee. We had some insightful and slightly hilarious content ready to share with you on the blog, but instead we wanted to call attention to two major events that occurred and let everyone know how they could get involved.

Early Tuesday morning, March 3, our community was struck by a series of tornadoes, one of which was an F4 with winds over 175 miles an hour having traveled over 80 miles. These tornadoes and the storms that generated them caused an insane amount of destruction from Nashville to Cookeville. For those of you who were here in 2010 when flooding caused tremendous damage and loss of life, you know how this community comes together.

I’ve lived through natural disasters before, in other parts of the country. In fact, today (March 6) is the 19 year anniversary of an ice storm that crippled my hometown of Rochester, NY for over two weeks. No heat, no power, bailing out basements, sleeping in cars to keep warm; you name it – it happened.

In Rochester, people keep to themselves and coming together after a disaster seemed weird and intrusive.

My business partner lived through multiple hurricanes in Florida and similarly described her experience with recovery as solitary efforts of the individuals impacted, not the community shouldering the responsibility.

In the south, erybdy gets in your bidness. Coming together after a disaster seems, somehow, natural here.

When you need help, people around here provide it without question. They know you would do the same for them. The difference in attitude and cheery helpfulness is striking.

If you live outside the Nashville area, you can help too. As always, the American Red Cross is here helping the hundreds of families either suffered tremendous loss or have been displaced. You can text REDCROSS to 90999 and immediately donate $10 to the relief efforts. You can also go to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and donate directly to relief efforts that provide much needed supplies – www.cfmt.org.

If you live in the area, Hand on Nashville has a fantastic site where you can volunteer your time, take a shift, and get your hands dirty. Got to www.hon.org and register if you haven’t already.

But wait!  There’s more!

As if the tornadoes weren’t enough, on Thursday the CDC and the Tennessee Board of Health identified the first case of Coronavirus in our state, right here in Williamson County. Awesome. Our team has spent most of the week helping our clients respond to the weather disaster and ensure they have a plan for dealing with a viral outbreak that could impact their operations.

You might not consider a disaster recovery plan to be in the domain of marketing, but our team has rich experience in Financial Services where pandemic and disaster planning is always part of your annual audit. If you need help preparing your business to work on slim shifts or convert to remote operations, we can assist.

In the meantime, as Ford Prefect would tell you, DON’T PANIC! The Coronavirus is scary, and clearly deadly, but there are many preventative measures individuals can take to control their surroundings. Wash your hands, wipe down work-spaces regularly, and most importantly, if you feel sick quarantine yourself if possible.

It’s been a crazy week, but Nashville always has a way of rising and taking on challenges that would crush the spirits of other towns. #nashvillestrong, we got this!

PSA – If you are a small business in the affected parts of our community and would like our assistance with helping to get back on track, we would love to donate hours of time to assist. Marketing is our jam but we are also rock stars at sweeping floors, answering phones, and running errands. If you are one of these businesses and would like our help, please fill out our contact form and we will be in touch!