Tornado Information
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| State Declaration of
Emergency |
City Declaration of Emergency
| County Declaration of
Emergency
For Damage Report Forms, please contact
the DES office.
A Minor Home Repair Grant Program and a Housing
Rehab Loan Program is available for low income households from
the Community Development Division, City of Billings: online
or call 657-8281.
PRESS RELEASE: June 30, 2010
TORNADO AND FLOODING DAMAGES - Government Assistance for Businesses
and Homeowners
For Further Information: Jim Kraft, DES, Yellowstone County
256-2775, jkraft@co.yellowstone.mt.gov
Business Assistance (for business property)
For uninsurable damages, businesses may be eligible for an Economic
Injury Disaster Loan at a 4 % interest rate from SBA (SBA determines
eligibility). Each business completes a worksheet documenting
losses, insurance claims, business interruption, etc. Yellowstone
County DES (YCDES) is serving as a gathering place for those worksheets
and will forward them to MTDES, who forwards them to the SBA.
If the emergency meets all the SBA criteria, then an SBA representative
will come to Billings and meet with the businesses.
Individual Assistance (for homeowners property flooded and/or
damaged)
For uninsured damages, homes must be destroyed or have major damage
to qualify for a potential "Individual Assistance" disaster
declaration from FEMA.
For clean up assistance and volunteering, neighbors
& volunteers can assist through the Harvest
Church in the Heights.
When making repairs and restoring damages, homeowners should contact
their city and/or county code enforcement offices to ensure there
is no impact to their neighbors. Phone: City: 237-6147, County:
294-5035
BUSINESSES - Economic Injury Disaster Loans
Sec. 123.300 Is my business eligible to apply
for an economic injury disaster loan?
(a) If your business is located in a declared disaster area, and
suffered substantial economic injury as a direct result of a declared
disaster, you are eligible to apply for an economic injury disaster
loan.
(1) Substantial economic injury is such that a business concern
is unable to meet its obligations as they mature or to pay its
ordinary and necessary operating expenses.
(2) Loss of anticipated profits or a drop in sales is not considered
substantial economic injury for this purpose.
(b) Economic injury disaster loans are available only if you were
a small business (as defined in part 121 of this chapter) when
the declared disaster commenced, you and your affiliates and principal
owners (20% or more ownership interest) have used all reasonably
available funds, and you are unable to obtain credit elsewhere
(see Sec. 123.104).
(c) Eligible businesses do not include agricultural enterprises,
but do include--
(1) Small nurseries affected by a drought disaster designated
by the Secretary of Agriculture (nurseries are commercial establishments
deriving 50 percent or more of their annual receipts from the
production and sale of ornamental plants and other nursery products,
including, but not limited to, bulbs, florist greens, foliage,
flowers, flower and vegetable seeds, shrubbery, and sod);
(2) Small agricultural cooperatives; and
(3) Producer cooperatives.
Sec. 123.301 When would my business not be eligible
to apply for an economic injury disaster loan?
Your business is not eligible for an economic disaster loan if
you (or any principal of the business) fit into any of the categories
in Secs. 123.101 and 123.201, or if your business is:
(a) Engaged in lending, multi-level sales distribution, speculation,
or investment (except for real estate investment with property
held for rental when the disaster occurred);
(b) A non-profit or charitable concern;
(c) A consumer or marketing cooperative;
(d) Not a small business concern; or
(e) Deriving more than one-third of gross annual revenue from
legal gambling activities;
(f) A loan packager which earns more than 1/3 of its gross annual
revenue from packaging SBA loans;
(g) Principally engaged in teaching, instructing, counseling,
or indoctrinating religion or religious beliefs, whether in a
religious or secular setting; or
(h) Primarily engaged in political or lobbying activities.
Sec. 123.302 What is the interest rate on an economic injury disaster
loan?
Your economic injury loan will have an interest rate of 4 percent
per annum or less.
Revised 06/07Sec. 123.303 How can my business spend my economic
injury disaster loan?
(a) You can only use the loan proceeds for working capital necessary
to carry your concern until resumption of normal operations and
for expenditures necessary to alleviate the specific economic
injury, but not to exceed that which the business could have provided
had the injury not occurred.
(b) Loan proceeds may not be used to:
(1) Refinance indebtedness which you incurred prior to the disaster
event;
(2) Make payments on loans owned by another federal agency (including
SBA) or a Small Business Investment Company licensed under the
Small Business Investment Act;
(3) Pay, directly or indirectly, any obligations resulting from
a federal, state or local tax penalty as a result of negligence
or fraud, or any non-tax criminal fine, civil fine, or penalty
for non-compliance with a law, regulation, or order of a federal,
state, regional, or local agency or similar matter;
(4) Repair physical damage; or
(5) Pay dividends or other disbursements to owners, partners,
officers or stockholders, except for reasonable remuneration directly
related to their performance of services for the business.
FEMA Assistance for Homeowners June 30, 2010
In order for a Presidential Declaration for IA (Individual
Assistance) to be declared by the state of MT, a couple of factors
come into play:
1. Categories of Damage - The only categories of damage that will
trigger a Presidential Declaration of Disaster are "Destroyed"
or "Major". With a Destroyed structure, the primary
residence of an individual must be declared a total loss or sustain
damage to such an extent that repairs are not economically feasible.
In a primary residence with Major damage the home must have sustained
structural or significant damages, is uninhabitable and requires
extensive repairs. (Repairs will take more than 30 days, has more
than 50% damage, etc.)
2. Numeric indicators - FEMA divides state populations into three
categories; large, medium and small. By their determination, since
Montana is considered a "small" state and since the
damages are within a single county, they would consider assistance
if Yellowstone County had 50 or more primary residence homes that
sustained either "destroyed" or "major" damages.
Yellowstone County would have to prove that it meets
the above criteria before any federal assistance would be available.
If we do meet the criteria the following process will occur:
1. The State of Montana would request that a Presidential Declaration
of Emergency be declared.
2. FEMA would then send a team of adjusters to verify the information
that was submitted
A few items that need to be stressed are:
- The home must be uninhabitable. From conversations with FEMA
that could include a home that had substantial flood damage.
- Additionally, losing the use of their furnace and/or hot water
heater, thereby making it uninhabitable, was an important determinant.
Just flooding of the basement would not make the home uninhabitable
nor would it meet the requirement of the home sustaining "50%
damage."
- Assistance is available ONLY if insurance is not available.
Also, there must be a minimum of 50 homes that have
sustained this level of damage for FEMA to even consider becoming
involved. Additionally, these must be primary residences.
Since we do not presently know the exact number
of homes that may have been damaged to this extent we are proposing
that a site be established on-line that will allow the homeowners
who believe they would qualify for assistance to enter their information
and detail the amount of damage that their home has sustained.
By filing their request for assistance on-line, it will allow
the DES office to examine those requests that qualify and provide
the state of MT with an accurate number of homes needing assistance.
A rough draft of that form is attached to this document. Additionally,
information will be provided to the media directing homeowners
to the on-line form to complete. On the site, homeowners will
be advised that federal assistance may be available to them if
only their home had major damage or was destroyed.
Since the tornado and flooding Sunday evening, there
have many inquiries regarding the emergency declaration and potential
assistance from different levels of government.
Emergency Declaration
When the City and County separately declared an emergency, it
was for several reasons:
1. It puts into effect the City/County Emergency Operations Plan
- this allows local government to "do whatever it takes"
to mitigate the emergency, which can bypass normal government
operating procedures. (e.g. - we can go to vendors directly to
assist with repairs instead of bidding it out).
2. We request state and federal assistance in the form of resources
and funding. (The MT National Guard was one of those resources
the State provided). The Governor then declares a State emergency
to activate the MT National Guard, use other State resources and
authorizes the expenditure of state funds to assist the City and
the County.
3. To potentially request a Presidential Disaster Declaration
in order for the federal government to provide federal resources
and financial assistance (if eligibility requirements are met).
FEMA may send in an advance team to survey the damage to determine
if the disaster qualifies for a Presidential Declaration.
Assistance is in primarily three categories: Public Assistance,
Business Assistance and Individual Assistance. Any government
financial assistance in all three categories is available after
insurance pays for their eligible damages, and then that assistance
is in the form of low interest loans. Normally there are no government
handouts of cash to businesses and/or individuals after a disaster.
Public Assistance (for government property)
For the Rimrock Auto Arena - since the County is insured up to
$121M, government assistance will kick in after $121M in expenditures
for damages.
For the City of Billings - damages to streets, roads and other
infrastructure may also be covered by insurance so government
assistance will kick in after insurance coverage.
However, for city and county damages beyond what insurance pays,
they may be eligible for state or federal disaster funds if:
Each has eligible uninsured expenditures beyond their 2 mill emergency
levy (the 2 mill levy is local government's commitment to the
emergency).
- If it's only a state emergency declaration (which it is at this
time) then both city and county will need to levy and expend the
two mills before they are eligible for any state financial assistance.
- If it is a Presidential Disaster Declaration (FEMA), both the
city and county have to commit, expend and document expenses up
to the 2 mill amount, without actually levying that amount, before
they are eligible for federal funds on a 75/25% reimbursement.
These expenses can be response and recovery costs
from normal operating budgets. The county and city would each
split their 25% share individually with the state.
Individual Assistance (for homeowners property
flooded and/or damaged)
For individual homeowners, there are not enough homes destroyed
or with enough major damage to qualify for the "Individual
Assistance" disaster declaration. The homeowners must rely
on their own insurance, themselves, or neighbors/volunteers to
do cleanup work.
Tornado Shelters
Although there are no shelters primarily designated in Billings
and Yellowstone County, the shelter lists from the civil defense
fallout days are still available. These shelters are basements
in businesses, schools and government buildings throughout the
city and county. The best protection from a tornado is seek out
a very sturdy windowless structure such as a basement, stairwell,
hallway, bathroom or any other small room, especially one with
concrete on all sides. Buildings, such as gymnasiums, auditoriums,
convention centers, arenas, with large open spaces and open span
roofs are not a good place to seek shelter. Although the Rimrock
Auto Arena is designated as a disaster shelter, it's important
to note the mezzanine areas under the seats are the designated
safest areas - not in the arena. However there are never any guarantees
no matter what shelter you find because of the unpredictability
of tornados.
