<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania residents impacted by severe storms and flash flooding earlier this month will soon have access to state and federal financial assistance programs.<\/p>\n
The Shapiro Administration announced that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has approved Governor Josh Shapiro’s request to make disaster assistance available to individuals, families, businesses, and nonprofit organizations affected by the September 2 and September 3 storms and flooding in Erie and Clinton counties.<\/p>\n
The assistance also extends to residents in surrounding counties, including Cameron, Centre, Clearfield, Crawford, Lycoming, Potter, Union, and Warren.<\/p>\n
The SBA’s Disaster Loan Program offers low-interest loans to help homeowners, renters, businesses, and private nonprofit organizations recover from flood-related losses. Homeowners may be eligible for up to $500,000 to repair or replace a primary residence and up to $100,000 to replace damaged personal property. Businesses and qualifying nonprofit organizations may apply for up to $2 million in disaster assistance for uninsured losses.<\/p>\n
Small businesses and nonprofit organizations that suffered economic losses as a result of the disaster may also qualify for Economic Injury Disaster Loans.<\/p>\n
In addition to federal assistance, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) will activate the Commonwealth Disaster Recovery Assistance Program (DRAP) on September 25. The grant program is designed for lower-income homeowners and renters who are uninsured or underinsured and have not received assistance from other sources.<\/p>\n
Eligible households may receive grants of up to $20,000 to help repair homes, secure temporary housing, or replace essential personal property damaged by flooding.<\/p>\n
Erie City and Millcreek Township are among the Erie County municipalities eligible for DRAP assistance because of local disaster declarations issued following the storm.<\/p>\n
PEMA Director Randy Padfield said the goal is to ensure residents know help is available as communities continue recovering from flood damage.<\/p>\n
To assist applicants, the SBA will open a Disaster Loan Outreach Center in Erie County beginning September 26 at the Salvation Army, located at 1022 Liberty Street in Erie. The center will provide in-person assistance with loan applications and recovery programs.<\/p>\n
The Erie outreach center will operate Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through October 10.<\/p>\n
The deadline to submit SBA disaster loan applications for physical property damage is Nov. 23, 2026. Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications must be submitted by June 22, 2027.<\/p>\n
The DRAP application portal opens September 25, and applications must be submitted by Dec. 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Residents seeking more information about available assistance programs can visit the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency website or contact the SBA Disaster Assistance Customer Service Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania residents impacted by severe storms and flash flooding earlier this month will soon have access to state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[106822,136,142,138,137,21682,28,121468],"class_list":["post-293191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-disaster-assistance","tag-erie","tag-erie-county","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-flooding","tag-pennsylvania","tag-sba-disaster-loan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}