Deadline to Register for Disaster Assistance is April 5

NORTH LITTLE ROCK – Residents of 11 Arkansas counties who suffered damage from the severe storms of December – January have only until Tuesday, April 5, 2016 to register for federal disaster assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Assistance can include money for rental assistance, essential home repairs, personal property loss and other serious disaster-related needs not covered by insurance.

Residents of Benton, Carroll, Crawford, Faulkner, Jackson, Jefferson, Lee, Little River, Perry, Sebastian and Sevier counties may be eligible for assistance.

The first step is register:

• Call 800-621-3362 (FEMA). If you are deaf, hard-of-hearing or have a speech disability and use a TTY, call 800-462-7585. If you use 711-Relay or Video Relay Services (VRS), call 800-621-3362.
• Go to www.disasterassistance.gov.

The toll free lines operate from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Multilingual operators are available.

Low-interest disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) are available to help with residential and business losses not covered by insurance. SBA helps businesses of all sizes, private non-profit organizations, homeowners and renters fund repairs or rebuilding efforts and cover the cost of replacing lost or disaster-damaged personal property. Applying for these loans is also a way to qualify for other avenues of assistance.

The SBA offers online an application through its Electronic Loan Application site at https://DisasterLoan.SBA.gov/ela. Survivors can contact the SBA’s Disaster Assistance Customer Service Center at 800-659-2955, email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov, or visit the SBA’s website at www.sba.gov/disaster. Individuals with a speech disability, are deaf or hard-of-hearing, may call TTY (800) 877-8339.

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FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.