SBA Establishes Aid Center in Kentucky to Help Small Business Owners with Tornado Disaster Loans

The US Small Business Administration opened a Business Recovery Center in Kentucky, near where deadly tornadoes and severe weather flattened entire towns and left dozens dead.

Severe storms tore apart places like Mayfield, Kentucky, and other locations in the state as well as Missouri and Tennessee. Tornadoes, straight-line winds and flooding ravaged the region. And the storms literally tore apart businesses.

The SBA’s goal is to provide one-on-one assistance to small business owners in the affected area applying for disaster loans.

SBA Opens Business Recovery Center in Kentucky Following Deadly Tornado Outbreak

The SBA Business Recovery Center opened at the Joe Creason Community Center in Benton, KY, on Wednesday.

A disaster has been declared in the following Kentucky counties. Business owners here can apply for both Physical Injury Disaster Loans and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL):

• Caldwell
• Fulton
• Graves
• Hopkins
• Marshall
• Muhlenberg
• Taylor
• Warren

Additionally, businesses in these counties are eligible to apply for EIDL, only, to get aid for the storm damage:

In Kentucky …

• • Adair
  • Allen
  • Barren
  • Butler
  • Calloway
  • Carlisle
  • Casey
  • Christian
  • Crittenden
  • Edmonson
  • Green
  • Hickman
  • Larue
  • Livingston
  • Logan
  • Lyon
  • Marion
  • McCracken
  • McLean
  • Ohio
  • Simpson
  • Todd
  • Trigg
  • Webster

In Missouri …

• • Mississippi
  • New Madrid

In Tennessee …

• • Henry
  • Lake
  • Obio
  • Weakley

The aid center is open from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 18.

EIDL are available to any business or non-profit organization in the affected area, even if they weren’t directly impacted by the storm. Each business or organization can borrow up to $2 million in an EIDL. That many can go toward  repairing damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery or other equipment, inventory, and other business assets.

A business can get a loan amount increase of up to 20% of its physical damages for mitigation purposes, such as the construction of a safe room or storm shelter, a sump pump, elevation, retaining walls, and more.

Interest rates on EIDL are at 2.83% for businesses and 1.875% for non-profits.

Sign Up for Kentucky Tornado EIDL Loans

Affected businesses may apply online for an EIDL related to the Kentucky tornadoes. The application can be found here. There’s a deadline to apply for a physical property damage loan, on Feb. 10, 2022. For returning economic injury applications, the deadline for businesses is Sept. 12, 2022.

Image: SBA.gov

This article, "SBA Establishes Aid Center in Kentucky to Help Small Business Owners with Tornado Disaster Loans" was first published on Small Business Trends