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One month left for SBA help on physical losses from Hurricane Ian

Damage is shown outside Doc Ford's restaurant on Fort Myers Beach.
Eileen Kelley
/
WGCU
Damage is shown outside Doc Ford's restaurant on Fort Myers Beach.

Residents and business owners whose property suffered physical damage from Hurricane Ian have just one more month to apply for Small Business Administration loans.

As of the close of business Monday, the Small Business Administration has received 30,588 loan applications from Floridians intending to rebuild and repair after the catastrophic category four storm washed ashore Sept. 28.

Program administrator, Isabella Casillas Guzman, toured the badly damaged Fisherman's Wharf area underneath the Matanzas Pass Bridge recently to see the devastation on person.

A crowd of business owners and community leaders where there to greet her.


“I just need to have some capital get it going -- to generate some revenue [so we can] reinvest in our business.”
Marty Harrity, owner of Doc Ford’s Rum Bar and Grille and the Dixie Fish Company.

“I just need to have some capital get it going -- to generate some revenue [so we can] reinvest in our business,” said Marty Harrity, the owner of Doc Ford’s Rum Bar and Grille as well as the Dixie Fish Company.

He's eager to rebuild.

“If we could put the capital together, we could open by Thanksgiving,” he said.

The deadline to apply for loans for any physical losses suffered by hurricane Ian is November 28.
The deadline to return applications to the Small Business Administration for economic losses is June 29 2023.

“You can sit and not do anything or you can attack and we're attacking,” Harrity said.

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