The study was jointly carried out by Miriflex, the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, and CrainTech.

Results of the study indicate that the event will affect growth and relocation plans for a significant number of businesses, and that it will cause many more to ramp up their investments in disaster preparedness and alternate energy systems in the future.

Among the key findings of the study were the following: * 11% of firms said that the blackout will affect their decision making with regards to either growth or relocation.

* 38% of firms said that they would be likely to invest in alternate energy systems.

* 34% of firms currently have no risk management or disaster recovery plans in place.

* 46% of the businesses surveyed will invest more in risk management, business continuance or disaster recovery in the future.

* 35% of the businesses surveyed believed that it was likely that the region’s image would suffer as a result of the blackout.

* 66% of the businesses surveyed lost at least a full business day due to the blackout.

* 24% of the businesses surveyed lost over $50,000 per hour of downtime.

* 4% of businesses lost over $1 million per hour of downtime.

* Production/manufacturing and customer sales/service were the areas of business hardest hit by the blackout.