Crisis Response & Community Resilience | Russian River Chamber of Commerce | 2019
2019 Flood — Emergency Business Recovery
The Situation
When floods devastated the lower Russian River region in February 2019, downtown businesses faced a double blow: physical damage and weeks of lost access that cut off customers entirely. For many small business owners, survival came down to a simple question — could they cover rent and basic operating costs long enough to get back on their feet?
As Executive Director of the Russian River Chamber of Commerce, Elise didn't wait for a recovery plan to arrive from above. She built one.
Emergency Grant Fund
Within two weeks of the flood, Elise had assembled a fundraising partnership spanning community donors, the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce, and Sonoma County — raising more than $86,000. Those funds were converted into direct grants to affected businesses, targeted specifically at covering rent and basic operating costs for the critical six-week window before insurance money typically arrives.
Building Longer-Term Resilience
Even while managing immediate relief, Elise was thinking about the next flood. She applied for and won a $50,000 USDA grant to bring laptops and e-commerce training to local businesses — helping them build online sales capacity so a future disruption wouldn't cut off their revenue entirely.
The impact was immediate. A local garlic store, set up as a live example during training, built an online store that performed so well its owner was able to sustain his business and livelihood through the COVID-19 pandemic years later.
What Followed
The quality of Elise's crisis response caught the attention of Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who reached out to bring her onto the County of Sonoma staff as community liaison for the lower Russian River region — a role that would deepen her work in watershed resilience, disaster response, and community engagement for the next four years.