The Town of Red River has launched a free online tool designed to help local businesses create disaster preparedness and continuity plans, officials announced this week.
The Red River Business Disaster Planning Tool, a confidential web-based resource, is available at redriver.org/disaster-planning-for-businesses and allows business owners to build customized emergency plans through a guided process.
Town officials say the tool was created to address a growing need for preparedness in the small mountain community, where the economy depends heavily on tourism and locally owned businesses.
Red River’s economy includes more than 95 tourism-facing businesses that collectively welcome more than 450,000 visitors each year and generate more than $90 million annually, according to the town’s Office of Economic Development and Tourism Director Max Khudiakov. About 99% of those businesses are locally owned, and many do not have written continuity plans or access to affordable preparedness resources.
“Our local businesses are the heartbeat of this community,” said Khudiakov. “We built this tool to take the guesswork out of emergency preparedness.”
Khudiakov said the platform allows shop owners, restaurant operators and lodging managers to complete a step-by-step process to produce a disaster readiness plan tailored to their operations.
The nine-step interactive webform guides users through identifying critical business functions, cataloging equipment, creating employee call trees, drafting crisis communications and designating a succession authority if the primary owner is unavailable.
After completing the form, users can download a fully customized continuity plan as an editable document. The town does not collect or store information entered into the tool, officials said.
A companion PDF guide and a curated list of federal, state and local preparedness resources are also available on the website.
The tool was developed as part of the town’s Resilient Business Initiative and funded through a $25,000 grant from the New Mexico Economic Development Department’s Local Economic Assistance, Development and Support (LEADS) program.
“The LEADS program exists to help New Mexico communities build the kind of economic resilience that keeps businesses open and workers employed when adversity strikes,” Khudiakov said.
Officials said the grant also supported business continuity assessments, preparedness workshops and an outreach campaign called “Be Prepared to Stay Open,” which reached more than 100 Red River businesses.
The planning tool was developed in partnership with HatchForm, a Santa Fe-based consulting firm focused on economic development and community resilience. Consultants Sean O’Shea and Dr. Julia Wise led the project in collaboration with the town’s economic development office. https://redriver.org/disaster-planning-for-businesses/
