U.S. Offering Loans to Rebuild Homes, Businesses

Southern California flood victims became eligible for more relief Wednesday as the U.S. government made low-interest loans available for rebuilding private homes and businesses in five rain-ravaged counties.

The money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration will help those whose insurance will not pay for flood damage to private property in Ventura, Los Angeles, Kern, Orange and San Bernardino counties.

Four back-to-back storms from Feb. 9 to 18 left eight dead and caused an estimated $125 million in damage to public and private property throughout the five-county region.

The announcements by FEMA and the SBA followed news on Tuesday that President Bush had approved $77.5 million in FEMA aid to rebuild public roads, bridges and flood control systems ruined by the rains.

Money for those projects will be doled out through the state Office of Emergency Services to contractors hired by local governments to do the repairs, said Alex Newton, a spokesman for FEMA’s regional office in San Francisco.

Those seeking aid to rebuild uninsured homes and businesses should call the agency’s Texas-based claim center at 800-462-9029, said Ruth Austin, a FEMA spokeswoman in Orange County.

That center will screen applications and forward claims that qualify to field offices that will be set up in each of the five counties sometime in the next week, she said.

A central claim-processing office is expected to open this morning in Pasadena.

Austin said FEMA has not determined how much money will be available for uninsured private property.

However, Newton said owners of recreational vehicles will be eligible for the federal loans if they can prove that they lived full time in their RVs and had no other home.

Dozens of RVs, trailers and campers were damaged or swept to sea when the Ventura River swelled over its banks and swamped the Ventura Beach RV Resort.

Meanwhile, American Red Cross officials pleaded Wednesday for donations for their Ventura County chapter, saying they have received only a fraction of the money that they need for flood relief.

The agency expects to spend about $150,000 for the Ventura Flood Relief Operation, said Executive Director Brian Bolton.

So far, the organization has received only $4,000 in donations toward the aid that it provided for 155 families, Bolton said.

“That’s not nearly enough,” Bolton said, adding, “We have already spent almost three times what we expected to assist families affected by fires and other disasters.”

The chapter’s 1990-91 budget was $34,000, he said.

Times staff writer Collin Nash contributed to this report.