Moving Forward

• Your Home
• Your Children & Schools
• Your Business or Farm
• Your Finances & Job
• Your Health
• Your Official Documents

Your Home

• Being Safe
• Financial & Insurance Support
• Clean Up the Damage

After the disaster, there are many things to consider. Is your home safe to enter? How do you get financial assistance for temporary housing or for repairing and rebuilding your home? How do you save and clean up your possessions? These resources can help.

Being Safe

• Recovering from Disaster. A great overview on how to get started, FEMA offers some general advice on steps to take after disaster strikes in order to begin getting your home, your community, and your life back to normal.
• Fact Sheets on Natural Disaster Recovery: Flood Cleanup. Occupational Safety & Health Administration has produced a fact sheet for cleanup workers that provides good information if you perform any clean up activities on your own home.
• Prevent Illness and Injuries After a Hurricane or Flood. The CDC provides helpful tips for keeping safe when returning to your home.
• Returning Home Safely. General tips, things to consider before you enter your home provided by FEMA.

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Financial & Insurance Support

To qualify for Federal Housing Assistance, homeowners must prove that they owned and occupied their home at the time of the disaster and that the damage was disaster related. Renters must prove that they lived in the disaster-damaged unit at the time of the disaster.

• Tips for Filing an Insurance Claim. FEMA has suggestions on how to make the insurance claims process go more smoothly.
• File a Flood Claim. If you have flood insurance from the National Flood Insurance Program, they explain how to file your claim. You can also contact an agent by calling 1-800-427-2419.
• Mortgage Insurance for Disaster Victims - Section 203(h). The Section 203(h) program allows the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to insure mortgages made by qualified lenders to victims of a major disaster who have lost their homes and are in the process of rebuilding or buying another home.This program can help individuals purchase a new home or rebuild their house if they are victimized by a major disaster. While HUD does not lend money directly to buyers to rebuild or purchase, FHA-approved lenders make loans through this special insurance program.
• Disaster Housing Resources. FEMA has information on resources towards repair of your home and temporary housing.
• How to Get Housing Help. There are many resources available to help you find, and pay for, housing. This list of resources produced by HUD will help you find housing services and financing.
• Resources for Consumers for Disaster Recovery and Building Reconstruction. A list of resources from the Department of Energy to help you rebuild a home that's safer, more durable and disaster-resistant, and can help you save on energy bills, too.
• Disaster Assistance. The SBA provides various types of loans for homeowners and renters in the event of a disaster. This includes physical disaster loans, economic injury loans, military reservists' loans, and home and personal property loans. Anyone with questions about disaster loans can call the SBA Customer Service Center at 1-800-659-2955.
• Look for Benefits. Search for benefits using GovBenefits.gov, the official benefits website of the U.S. government, with information on over 1,000 benefit and assistance programs.
• Disaster Relief Loans. Another resource to check is GovLoans.gov, designed to be your gateway to government loan information. They also provide information in Spanish at GovLoans.gov - Spanish portal.

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Clean Up the Damage

• Disaster Recovery and Building Reconstruction. The Department of Energy provides useful clean-up and recovery information including tips for cost-effective, durable, and energy-efficient building reconstruction.
• Wet Recovery. The National Park Service has a number of documents on how to salvage your belongings after flood or water damage.
• Saving Family Treasures Guidelines. Guidelines for the care of some of the more common materials to be affected by a natural disaster or other emergency are provided by the National Archives.
• Dealing with Air, Water and Land Contamination. From the EPA, information about keeping food and water safe, private water wells, mold, debris and other environmental issues that arise when a disaster happens.
• Flood Cleanup. The EPA has publications discussing the air quality issues of mold and how to clean up effectively after a flood.
• Rebuilding Resources. Resources to clean your home and rebuilding smarter and safer from FEMA.
• Salvage. Information on how to salvage household items from fire and water damage from the U.S. Fire Administration.

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