Published: October 14, 2008 12:32 am         

Help from the flood offered through SBA loans

Garfield and Grant counties are being offered loans and disaster assistance through the U.S. Small Business Administration for the Sept. 11-18 flooding that hit much of the area.

SBA is offering low-interest loans to Oklahoma residents and business owners who had damage from the severe storms and flooding. SBA acted under its own authority to declare the flooding a disaster following last week’s denial by the White House of the state’s request for a major disaster declaration.

The application center is open in the Blackwell Chamber of Commerce at 120 S. Main Street. The office is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The SBA Disaster Loan Outreach Center may be reached by calling toll-free at (800) 659-2955 or by e-mailing SBA at disastercustomerservice@sba.gov.

Low-interest federal disaster loans are available to homeowners, renters, businesses of all sizes and private, non-profit organizations whose property was damaged or destroyed by the disaster.

Several types of loans are available, including home disaster loans, business physical disaster loans and economic injury disaster loans. The economic injury disaster loans are working capital loans to help small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives and most private, non-profit organizations of all sizes meet their ordinary and necessary financial obligations that cannot be met as a direct result of the disaster.

Disaster loans up to $200,000 are available to homeowners to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate. Homeowners and renters are eligible for up to $40,000 to repair or replace damaged or de-stroyed personal property.

Once an application for a loan has been filled out, it will take three to seven days for an SBA official to inspect the damage.

The office in Blackwell will close Oct. 30. The filing deadline to return applications for property damage is Dec. 8. The deadline to return economic injury applications is July 8, 2009.

The requirements to receive the loans include having a credit history acceptable to SBA, a proven ability to repay all loans and collateral for physical loss loans over $14,000 and EIDL loans over $5,000.