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Farmers, business owners, homeowners face uncertainty after $100B in relief flounders

By TRAVIS LOLLER and LEAH WILLINGHAM Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — American farmers and small business owners are among those who will suffer if Congress cannot agree on a new spending bill after President-elect Donald Trump abruptly rejected a bipartisan plan that included more than $100 billion in disaster aid.

The money is urgently needed after Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed the southeastern United States one after the other this fall. Helene alone was the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005, killing at least 221 people. Nearly half were in North Carolina where flooding and winds caused an estimated $60 billion in damage.

“I’m tracking this bill like a hawk right now, to be honest,” Asheville Tea Co. founder and CEO Jessie Dean said. “I think a lot of us are.”

Flooding from Helene in September washed away the company’s building along with all of its equipment and inventory. Her small business employs 11 people directly and also works with small farmers in the area to supply the herbs for its teas.

Dean is extremely grateful for support the business has received from customers and nonprofits that is helping it stay afloat right now, but more is needed. So far she has received no money from the U.S. Small Business Administration after applying for a disaster relief loan. Neither have any of the other business owners she knows.

“In day to day life right now, I’m talking to friends every day who are struggling with the decision around whether or not to continue to run their business, whether or not they can,” she said.

Many farmers are in the same boat, since about $21 billion of the disaster aid in the doomed bill was assistance for them.

“Without federal disaster money right now, or without some assistance, people like me will not be farming much longer,” Georgia pecan farmer Scott Hudson said. He farms 2,600 acres (1,050 hectares) of pecans across five counties in southeastern Georgia that were hammered by Hurricane Helene.

“We lost thousands of trees that will be decades before they are back to where they were the night before the storm,” he said. “And we lost upwards to 70% of the crop in certain counties.”

Some of his fellow farmers fared even worse.

“Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, the farmers need this money,” he said. “American ag needs this money … not to be profitable, to just stay in business.”

People like retired engineer Thomas Ellzey are also counting on disaster aid. He has been living in a mud-filled house in Fairview, North Carolina, for almost three months. Although he pre-qualified for a low-interest loan from the SBA that helps homeowners rebuild, officials have told him the agency does not have the money and is waiting on Congress to act.

Ellzey is 71 years old and said he budgeted carefully for his retirement, trying to prepare for every possible emergency that could come up once he stopped working. But he couldn’t have predicted a hurricane, he said.

“Everything I owned was paid for, including my cars, the house, the land. I had no bills,” he said. “Going back in debt is kind of rough at my age.”

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