You may not have noticed, but in a post-credits scene at the end of every Dwayne Johnson movie, The Rock dusts off his shredded T-shirt and surveys the smoldering aftermath of the skyscraper or fleet of race cars or San Andreas neighborhood he’s just spent the last two hours destroying. Cocking one eyebrow, he stares into the distance and says to himself, “Well, time to fill out that SBA disaster loan paperwork.”
Not really, we just needed a hook to draw you in to an otherwise dry and serious topic.
What you’ve likely noticed in reality is Hurricane Michael hitting Florida with 155 MPH winds, causing damage that’s still being tallied; or Hurricane Florence inflicting over $17 billion in devastation on North and South Carolina; or the volcano in Kilauea, Hawaii, that’s cost island residents millions; or the hurricane trio of Harvey, Irma, and Maria that wreaked a total of $306 billion in damages in the US in 2017. Not even The Rock could keep up with that disaster schedule.
Between 2017 and 2018, there were a combined 240 federally declared disasters in the US. Hopefully, you and your business won’t be affected by one in the coming year—but should it happen, you may need to learn the ins and outs of an SBA disaster loan.