How small businesses should prepare for natural disasters.

     After a long summer of employee vacations (and, let's face it, scant motivation to stay inside and work), September is an exciting time for small businesses ripe with renewed energy. But in some parts of the country, September brings a dark reminder, too: hurricane season.

      To give you a sense of a worst-case scenario: Hurricane Katrina, among the worst storms in U.S. history, wreaked $21.1 billion in business-related losses, excluding flood claims, according to Property Claims Service. The odds of a small business getting back on its feet after such a storm is not good: FEMA estimates nearly 40 percent of small businesses won't reopen after enduring a natural disaster.

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