Federal aid has been sent to Hawaiʻi after a major disaster declaration was made after the back-to-back Kona low storms in March.
Part of that recovery came in the form of the Small Business Administration sending a rapid response disaster team to the islands.
Across the Pacific, however, the Northern Mariana Islands are still reeling from the Super Typhoon Sinlaku.
To learn more about how the SBA is planning to assist in the aftermath of Sinlaku, HPR spoke with SBA spokeswoman Natalie Butz, who was in Honolulu and is scheduled to continue to Guam.
Under the Trump administration’s second term, the SBA closed its offices in Guam last year in an effort to streamline operations, meaning Guam now falls under the SBA’s Hawaiʻi district office. She explained how the SBA is balancing its duties in Guam and Hawaiʻi.
“We still do not have a declaration for Guam, so right now, we are just preparing and getting in place and making sure, as I mentioned, that we have officers on the ground who are assessing the situation and making sure that we are in place for a declaration should it come,” Butz said. “That does not mean, though, that any of our attention is turned away from Hawaiʻi and the impacts of the Kona low systems.”
According to Butz, physical disaster loans and economic injury disaster loans are available in various counties across Hawaiʻi to those who were directly and indirectly impacted by the Kona low storms.
“There are often ripple effects to disasters such as this. In fact, most businesses will not feel the full economic impacts of a disaster until six to nine months after that disaster,” Butz explained. “And so what economic injury disaster loans are meant for is to help businesses meet those ordinary and necessary financial obligations that they would have been able to meet were it not for the disaster.”
The deadline to apply for physical disaster loans is June 10 and the deadline to apply for economic injury disaster loans is Jan. 10, 2027. More information can be found on the Small Business Administration website.
This story aired on The Conversation on April 21, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
