Seeing Green.

• Author: Bonham, Nicole

Forty percent of small companies hit by natural disaster never reopen. Twenty-five percent close within a year of the event, whether it be flood, fire, hurricane, earthquake or a tornado, such as struck Salt Lake City last year, wreaking $5 million in damage to the Delta Center alone.

The statistics from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) may seem dry and flat on paper, but the consequences are real, as evidenced by the now-infamous wind storm of 1999 and its bottom-line impact to the city's downtown hotel and commerce district. Also consider last summer's central Oklahoma tornado the nation's first to reach the billion dollar mark in damages.

FEMA, on its part, is mounting a new attack on disaster-related loss with its up-front effort "Project Impact: Building Disaster Resistant Communities." The agency is enlisting business and industry in its push for disaster preparedness, calling for companies to act before catastrophe strikes.

More subtly, however, as perceived changes in global weather patterns gain consistent media coverage and scientific attention, there are signs that society is sitting up and taking notice of its natural surroundings. And that nature is taking an increasing role in the concept of building communities.

It's a theme that has spawned new principles in building and design, including the trend toward "green building," plus a new savvy for natural factors of consideration like weather and climate, ecology, health and even pollution control. These acts of up-front preparedness may not save a company or home in the face of natural disaster, but do suggest a growing trend of awareness by consumers and industry about cooperating with the environment for optimum efficiency, health and global responsibility.

Weather in Flux

So what's up with the weather? Salt Lake City this year had its hottest early summer on record. Heat and drought settled into the state's southern regions, forcing many livestock operators to sell out after generations in the business. Even the Bureau of Land Management issued its grazing-permit holders a warning of cutback or no grazing allowed on portions of its federal lands in Utah -- important winter range for grazers.

And as Utah sizzled, other regions were unusually flush in flood-level rainfall.

Pollster Dan Jones & Associates in a Deseret News/KSL-TV poll earlier this year surveyed Utahns as to whether they believed that recent strange weather (tornadoes, early season heat-waves) were...