MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. — Martin County leaders said Friday that the county is rebounding economically from the setbacks of 2020.
"So far, for 2021 our revenue has doubled," said Lauren Hubbard, Owner of LK Bridal Designs.
"As we started coming out of quarter three of 2020, our economic indicators started coming back to right about where we were at in 2019 and here in 2021 we have some economic indicators that show we're doing much better than we did in 2019," said George Stokus, Asst. County Administrator.
The success though didn't come without a struggle.
"2020 we had no idea what was going to happen," said Hubbard. "Like I said we had to close for over a month. I was limited to the only inventory I had in stock."
In 2020, over 2100 businesses across the county were forced to close their doors for good.
Stokus said it has left county leaders with a lesson learned.
"What we learned is that we need to diversify our economy," said Stokus. "We can't be too reliant on tourism and hospitality. We need to look at manufacturing and look at relying a little bit more on some of our legacy industries."
Stokus said the county's COVID rebound plan also calls for investing into the community.
"We need to work on workforce talent, workforce education, looking at master planning for folks with transportation limitation," said Stokus.
"They've come in just to do business," said Hubbard. "Specifically to give business, so we wouldn't go out of business."
Stokus said the recovery plan looks ahead to the next three to five years and that it should allow for more sustainability moving forward.