Market Notes: Two Disaster Notices, One Storm, and Only One Lets Homeowners Apply
Three states got federal disaster declarations in August, and Indiana got two notices under one disaster number. They are not interchangeable: one prints a loan rate a homeowner can apply for, and the other names private non-profits and nobody else. The difference is printed in the notices, and it decides what a storm repair quote is being compared against.
Figures from the Federal Register.
What was declared in August
Three states received Presidential major disaster declarations that were published in the Federal Register in August. Each notice names its own counties, its own incident period and its own interest rates. They are not one program with one set of terms, and the differences are printed on the page.
| State | Incident period | Declared | Counties for homeowner loans | Homeowner rate, no credit elsewhere |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi (FEMA-4930-DR) | June 18 to June 20, 2026 | August 3, 2026 | 4 | 2.875% |
| West Virginia | July 21 to July 22, 2026 | August 3, 2026 | 2 | 2.875% |
| Indiana (FEMA-4933-DR) | August 11, 2026 and continuing | August 25, 2026 | 21 | 3.000% |
The Mississippi notice names Tropical Storm Arthur as the incident and gives the incident period as June 18 to June 20, 2026, with the declaration dated August 3, 2026. Count the gap: 46 days passed between the first day of the storm and the day the declaration was signed, against 13 in West Virginia and 14 in Indiana. A homeowner who waited for a declaration before calling anyone waited that long with the damage open.
The West Virginia notice prints its disaster number in a shorter form than the other two. We left it out of the table rather than reprint a number we could not confirm against a second document. The counties, dates and rates in that notice are unambiguous, so those are what we used.
Indiana is the newest of the three. The Federal Register gives its incident period as August 11, 2026 and continuing, with a declaration dated August 25, 2026. That notice names 21 counties for homeowner physical damage loans, at 3.000% for an applicant with no credit available elsewhere and 6.000% for one who has it.
The two words that decide who can apply
Indiana appears twice. The Federal Register carries two notices under the same disaster number, FEMA-4933-DR, published a day apart, and they do not say the same thing.
The first is a declaration for the state. It lists 21 counties and prints rates a homeowner can apply for. The second is headed for Public Assistance Only. It lists 11 counties, and the only applicants it names are private non-profit organizations providing essential services of a governmental nature. The single rate it prints, 3.625%, belongs to them. A homeowner is not among the applicants that notice describes.
Public Assistance is the category that pays to repair public infrastructure and certain non-profit facilities. The disaster home loans are the part that reaches a household. A county can appear in one notice and not the other, under one disaster number, for one storm.
So the useful question is not whether your state was declared. It is which notice names your county, and for what. That is answerable in a minute by reading the notice rather than the coverage of it.
Where a declaration lands on a repair quote
A declaration changes two things a homeowner can see on paper, and neither of them is a price.
The first is financing. A notice in the Federal Register prints a rate, an applicant class, a filing deadline and a date. A financing offer made at your door by a crew that arrived after the storm has none of those properties unless you ask for them in writing. Setting the two side by side is not a recommendation to borrow from anyone. It is a reason to ask any lender for the same four things a published notice already shows.
The second is scope. Storm work is priced against damage, and damage is argued about. A quote that says "roof replacement" followed by a number is not a scope. A quote that lists the tear-off, the underlayment, the flashing at every penetration, the number of squares, and what happens if the deck underneath is wet, is something you can hold a contractor to after the crew has moved on to the next county.
Ask for the state registration or license number and a physical address on the contract itself. Both are checkable in an afternoon and neither costs anything to verify before you sign.
What these notices do not tell you
None of this tells you what your repair will cost. We could not source any published figure for how much roofing or siding prices move in a county after a declaration. Contractor pricing is not collected that way, and a national average would not describe one county even if it existed. A post-disaster percentage offered without a document behind it is somebody's impression.
The notices are also a moving target. They get amended: counties are added, incident periods are extended, deadlines shift. This page reports what four notices said on the days they were published, not what the program looks like when you read this.
And a declaration is not a repair. It is a federal finding about damage in a place. It does not put a crew on your roof, it does not settle an insurance claim, and it does not make a bid reasonable.
What to ask before you sign
Every one of these can be answered out of a document, which is what separates them from reassurance.
- Which notice names my county, and for what? Search the Federal Register for the declaration by state and read the county list in the notice itself. Being in the state is not being in the notice.
- What is the filing deadline, and where is it printed? Every notice carries its own deadlines. A deadline repeated to you by a contractor is not a deadline; the one in the notice is.
- What does this quote assume is under the roof? Storm quotes are written before the tear-off. Ask what quantity of decking or sheathing is included, at what unit price, and what happens past that count.
Related on this site
Other pages on this site that take a quote apart the same way:
Sources and method
- SBA disaster declaration notices — U.S. Small Business Administration notices of Presidential major disaster declarations, published in the Federal Register: Mississippi (FEMA-4930-DR, published 7 August 2026), West Virginia (published 7 August 2026), Indiana (FEMA-4933-DR, published 31 August 2026), and the Public Assistance Only notice for Indiana under the same disaster number (published 1 September 2026). Each notice prints its own county list, eligibility and interest rates. Figures read from the publisher on 1 September 2026. federalregister.gov
- Roof assembly, in order — A steep-slope roof is built rafter, deck, underlayment, covering, with flashing worked in at every wall and penetration. That order is trade convention, not a measurement and not a code citation. What each layer must consist of, and where an ice barrier is required, is set by the code edition a jurisdiction has adopted.
- How much prices rise after a disaster declaration — We could not source a published figure for how much roofing or siding prices move in a county after a major disaster declaration. Contractor pricing is not collected that way. Anecdotes are not measurements, and a national average would not describe one county anyway.
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