Government Funding Included Relief For Hurricane-Impacted Businesses

After some back and forth, Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR) that keeps the government funded through March 14, 2025. The CR also allocated approximately $100 billion to help Americans trying to recover from multiple natural disasters in 2023 and 2024, including $2.2 billion to restore funding in the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) disaster loan fund.

In October, the SBA announced that funds for its disaster loan program have been depleted because of the two disasters, meaning the agency cannot offer these low-interest, long-term loans to disaster survivors until Congress appropriates funding. With Hurricane Helene, the agency has received around 37,000 applications and made more than 700 loan offers totaling about $48 million. The SBA has also received more than 12,000 applications for Hurricane Milton.

This lack of support is hurting businesses from Virginia to Florida. For example, the Virginia Creeper Trail is a popular bike trail in the southwest part of the state that runs 34 miles from Whitetop Station through Damascus to Abingdon and is vital to the area’s economy. Unfortunately, 18 miles of it have been devastated and funding is unavailable to restore it.

“While local sections of the trail have reopened, the U.S. Forest Service-managed portion remains closed due to extensive damage, including the destruction of multiple trestles. The continued closure of the 17-mile section threatens the economic vitality of southwest Virginia, as tourism and related businesses depend on the trail’s accessibility,” wrote Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin in a request for funding.

Michael Wright operates four businesses in this area of Virginia, Adventure Damascus, Hellbender’s Cafe, Damascus Outfitters, and a screen-printing shop, that have been impacted by Helene. When he found out SBA disaster loan funding was unavailable, he told the Cardinal News, “I just put the SBA out of my mind and started cleaning up and trying to resurrect my business.”

Ralph Wilson was forced to close two of his four businesses in Damascus, the Dragonfly Inn and the Damascus Diner, because of flooding from Helene. He was also unable to get an SBA disaster loan because there is no funding and began paying his own employees on his own and looked for assistance in other areas. Unfortunately, Wright and Wilson have had to collectively lay off 67 people. This devastation across six states prompted lawmakers from those areas to push for restoring the SBA disaster loan funding in the CR.

“Asheville went 52 days without drinkable water. They just got it back two and a half weeks ago. It is a dire situation,” Senator Thom Tillis [R-NC] told Fox News. “It’s going to take years to recover, and we shouldn’t be playing games with people’s lives in western North Carolina, in Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, all who were hit by Helene, they were hit by Milton and they were hit by Debbie. We’ve got to do right by them and put politics aside.”

The fact that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in these states were adamant about this funding is a testament to the bipartisan nature of this issue. Fortunately, the CR restored this funding, but we all know that the next natural disaster can strike with very little warning. The new Congress should take steps to ensure that businesses across Main Street have a more secure lifeline by ensuring that the SBA doesn’t face gaps in supporting businesses when they are their most vulnerable.