It took a full year for the Small Business Lending Fund to finally hit the streets as a stimulus for companies in Connecticut.
It took Tropical Storm Irene all of one day to do the same.
As businesses added up their loss columns in the aftermath of the storm, some industries were looking ahead to unexpected gains from a range of work spawned by Irene, from simple patch-ups to longer term planning for businesses that realized they were ill prepared for a disruption on the scale of Irene.
At the same time, the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development announced it would guarantee loans of up to $200,000 for storm-related expenses, even as money from the U.S. Treasury”™s Small Business Lending Fund began to trickle into Connecticut following its authorization a year ago.
At deadline, an authoritative final estimate of Tropical Storm Irene”™s damage to Connecticut had yet to be determined. On the eve of the storm, Silver Spring, Md.-based Kinetic Analysis Corp. predicted the storm would cause $882 million in damage to the state; the Northeast blackout caused $91 million in economic damage in Connecticut, according to estimates by Anderson Economic Group Inc.
For building contractors, Irene appears set to provide a similar boost to last winter”™s snowstorms that damaged rooftops throughout Fairfield County and the Northeast, providing an unexpected bump in the sector”™s employment for a few months. The Home Builders Association of Connecticut Inc. was quick to highlight a searchable database of its members on its website.
In early September, President Obama declared Fairfield County a disaster area along with four other counties in Connecticut, allowing households and businesses to receive direct assistance for repairs. Under the federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, the federal government will also provide reimbursement for actions taken to reduce the chance of injury or long-term damage to property.
Residents and businesses with disaster-related losses not covered by insurance can apply for federal disaster assistance at www.DisasterAssistance.gov, by calling 1-800-621-FEMA, or by accessing FEMA”™s mobile website at m.fema.gov.
At press deadline, the Small Business Administration had posted information for New York and New Jersey residents on how to obtain low-interest disaster loans of up to $2 million, but had yet to do so for Connecticut.
While Irene added up in the loss column, some business sectors such as insurance carriers, restaurants, leisure escapes and many retail outlets, it is proving an unexpected stimulus program of sorts for legions of others as the economy wobbled in August.
That includes hardware stores, repair businesses and sellers of big-ticket items like furnaces; landscape and tree companies; and companies that provide varying services dealing with business recovery, including information technology companies, risk planners and other consultants.
In the days after the storm, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy negotiated agreements from more than 15 insurance carriers covering at least 70 percent of the homeowners policies in the state, which agreed to waive the hurricane deductibles they might otherwise charge before covering claims for damage to property. Statewide, those deductibles would otherwise have totaled $100 million, according to the Connecticut Insurance Department.
“Public (property damage) is over $16 million,” Malloy said, citing information from FEMA. “But we think it”™s substantially higher. We know that we”™re up to 244 homes that have been recognized as destroyed or seriously damaged.”
That number would escalate in subsequent days as homeowners and businesses filed reports with the state”™s 211 line set up to collect data for FEMA, and obviously far more homes and businesses sustained relatively minor damage.
