Time to Tally the Damage

An hour before Friday’s noon deadline about 350 Swampscott people had filed flood-damage reports at with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

Friday was the third day the agency was at Town Hall to collect the reports and answer questions.

The money question is a big one.

What will it take to trigger the release of federal disaster dollars?

It takes 500 uninhabitable homes in a county to release federal grants for residents, said Peter Judge, a spokesman for MEMA.

The federal relief is intended to help residents whose living areas were left uninhabitable as a result of the disaster, he said.

Basements are not considered living areas, he said.

Still, there were some homes in Swampscott where living areas were damaged. 

Acting Fire Chief James Potts took MEMA and Small Business Administration officials to some of these residences in Swampscott this week, he said.

Disaster agency representatives have toured and will tour homes in other Essex County towns before they tally the damage.

MEMA officials concede that the federal guidelines represent a tough threshold but they are not giving up.

Mike Main, the representative at Town Hall told a local homeowner that the agency’s job is to collect damage information to build a case for relief.

If the disaster threshold is met and grants are issued people would be able to use them for repairs and cleanups to make their homes habitable.

Emergency officials will tally up the damage from towns in Essex County and make a determination about the county’s eligibility for disaster relief.

The other form of federal aid is long-term, low-interest loans — right now about 30 years at 3 percent.

These loans are not just reserved for businesses.

They are extended to qualifying individuals, households and businesses, Judge said.

The threshold for the SBA loans is much less than the federal disaster grants.

“The threshold for an SBA Disaster Declaration requires at least 25 claimants, each of whom has an uninsured loss of at least 40% of the value of the damaged property. We can count property owners or renters. An SBA Economic Injury Declaration requires 5 or more businesses that likely will suffer at least a 40% uninsured loss of revenue over the period they will be closed as compared to the similar period a year ago.,” according to MEMA.

Judge expects the state agency will know next week whether the county qualifies for SBA loans.

Judge did not know when to expect a determination on whether the county qualifies for federal relief grants.