Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series for ALM’s Small Business Guidance program, providing insights and information for small and medium-sized companies.

With more than one million homes and businesses without power across Louisiana, assessing the damage from Hurricane Ida will definitely take some time. The Category 4 hurricane made landfall near Port Fourchon, La., on August 29, approximately 40 miles away from where Hurricane Katrina had landed just 16 years earlier.