\u201cWe are in it for the long haul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Federal Emergency Management Agency federal coordinating officer Stephen DeBlasio Sr. said this was the directive given them by FEMA administrator William Craig Fugate.<\/p>\n
DeBlasio said that FEMA will be on island for \u201cat least\u201d the next three to four months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going anywhere until we get completely into recovery mode and to a point where our services are not needed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Though the deadline for households to register for FEMA assistance is on Oct. 5\u201460 days following the disaster\u2014DeBlasio said public assistance will go on \u201cuntil it\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeBlasio, together with U.S. Small Business Administration public information officer William Koontz and Red Cross-NMI chapter executive director John Hirsh, briefed members of the Chamber of Commerce at their meeting at Saipan World Resort yesterday.<\/p>\n
As of Sept. 1, DeBlasio said, registration for assistance has already reached 7,869 and over $10 million worth of assistance was approved.<\/p>\n
DeBlasio also enumerated the efforts being done by both local and federal partners with regards to power and water supply as well as debris clearing.<\/p>\n
He noted that FEMA generators have already been withdrawn from some water wells after the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. was able to restore power to wellheads, which is a good sign of recovery.<\/p>\n
DeBlasio also mentioned that nine of the 14 drinking water companies on Saipan are operating and generating more than 75,000 gallons of water per day.<\/p>\n
He also recognized the role of the private sector toward recovery following a disaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Chamber has been a great partner in sharing disaster assistance information with the Saipan private sector and the community at large. It\u2019s through such public-private partnership that we are able to expedite the revitalization and the recovery of the local communities and the local economy,\u201d DeBlasio said.<\/p>\n
Koontz spoke to the business community about SBA\u2019s programs for homeowners and businesses.<\/p>\n
For individuals and families, homeowners may be able to get a loan of up to $200,000 to repair or replace real estate damage and up to $40,000 to replace personal property. Renters may be able to loan up to $40,000 to repair or replace personal property.<\/p>\n
For businesses, aside from loans of up to $2 million for property damage, some can also apply for a loan due to economic injury, Koontz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour business may not have been directly damaged by the typhoon but perhaps you can\u2019t do business because you don\u2019t have power, or you don\u2019t have your inventory, you can\u2019t get it. Whatever the reason might be, if you can\u2019t make your monthly payments on your obligations, if you can\u2019t pay your staff, if you can\u2019t pay your mortgage, if you can\u2019t pay any notes that the business owns, then you would\u2019ve suffered what SBA calls economic injury and you are also eligible for apply for help for disaster loan,\u201d Koontz said.<\/p>\n
He noted that the term for the loan can be as long as 30 years.<\/p>\n
Hirsh took the opportunity to thank the organizations and the business community for their continued help in Red Cross relief efforts and particularly IT&E\u2019s help in setting up a call center for them to accommodate the 9,000 calls that they have received.<\/p>\n
Hirsh said that disaster response is a community effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t do this alone. There\u2019s no organization in this community that\u2019s big enough that has the influence and the reach that\u2019s necessary to provide for our community to recover,\u201d Hirsh said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWe are in it for the long haul.\u201d Federal Emergency Management Agency federal coordinating officer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[493,50,1204,116],"class_list":["post-209733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-fema","tag-power","tag-sba","tag-small-business-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}