Just as Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina before it, Hurricane Harvey is poised to present a serious logistical gauntlet for southeastern Texas lending agencies tasked with rescuing people from financial havoc with post-disaster loans. The U.S. Small Business Administration has consistently faced stark challenges in effectively holding a very important line in the American disaster lending frontier.
Katrina and Sandy collectively resulted in the SBA getting over $13 billion from loans to homeowners who didn’t even make a business claim. After over 60 years of lending, the SBA has gotten more than 50 million from over two million from loans in total.

Even though the SBA has made such a significant amount from disaster lending, the primary reason for its immensely rough time in managing the challenges of natural disasters has been their abruptness and non-existent grace period. When caught off guard by a superstorm, the SBA can frequently find itself seemingly isolated against the collective need for the nation to recover from the desperation caused by unexpected natural disasters.

After Hurricane Katrina, the average wait time for a disaster loan to be processed for applicants lucky enough to receive them was over two months. Hurricane Sandy saw disaster loan applicants waiting nearly six weeks to have their loads processed. Though the excessive wait times for loans to be processed during Katrina and Sandy prompted the creation of three new emergency loan programs, Congress was ultimately unsuccessful in implementing them due to a volley of logistical problems and miscommunications up the ladder.

The Office of Disaster Assistance hopes to make much better headway in managing the post-disaster loan needs of people in southeastern Texas than it was able to during Katrina and Sandy. Though it may not be possible to create an expedited loan processing time for each and every applicant that needs one following Harvey, Small Business Administrators have made a spirited effort to account for the weak points that proved to be particularly problematic in superstorms of the past.

All experts are in consensus that the overall financial toll of Hurricane Harvey will easily reach the billions. At this point in time, what remains yet to be seen is if the SBA’s preparations in response to past mistakes have truly equipped it with enough power to deal with the Harvey disaster more effectively. If successful, post-Harvey disaster lending protocol might serve to set a new precedent in how superstorm warnings are dealt with by the SBA the future.

It isn’t just Texas homeowners who will need to rebuild property after Harvey, but business owners as well. Homeowners and business owners alike may suffer from a post-disaster environment that makes it either difficult or impossible to retrieve the paperwork and secure the cash flow necessary to restore their properties.

Ideally, the SBA may be able to not only help rebuild Texas properties but also give businesses some financial support for expenses that they would have been able to afford under normal circumstances. The way that Texas is able to manage its need for SBA loans following Harvey will be an illustration of how effective the administration’s developmental initiatives have truly been.

 

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Hi Im Eddie. Ive been working in finance for most of my life so I thought I would start to show some or my learnings. Hope you find it useful. I have dogs too and cats. When Im not feed them Im running.