The Small Business Administration has already paid out $2 billion in loans related to the Eaton and Palisades fires, the agency’s head said during a tour of Altadena on Tuesday.
SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said over 600 businesses have been impacted by the fires.
“We just toured a burn zone that is rapidly recovering, and we had a great tour with our partners at FEMA and Army Corps of Engineers to see all the work,” she said. “And it's not just the scale of an economic size, but it's the scale of debris removal. They're estimating over 400 million tons of debris being removed, and way ahead of schedule.”
Subu Shatien, owner of 24seven Comfort Apparel, told KNX News’ Karen Adams things have been rough since the fires.
“Our property here did not get affected except the smoke damage,” he said. “We also had another property about a mile away from here which got completely destroyed, you know, we're having to reconstruct that area.”
But he said he’s hopeful the support of local, state, and federal agencies will allow the recovery to progress smoothly.
Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.
Owners of businesses hurt by the January fires have until March 31 to apply for disaster response loans.
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok
