Dear Mr. Berko:

A couple of months after the two hurricanes hit South Florida in 2004, you got a letter from someone in Illinois who tried to call his broker in Florida to sell a stock. He couldn’t reach his Florida broker, the stock went down, and this person lost a lot of money. You told him to file a form with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and that they might help him with the loss. Can you tell me if he got any money from FEMA?

I have the exact same problem but different. My daddy, who lives in New Orleans, was going to give my mama and me enough money to open a flower shop here in Erie. But Daddy’s business got flooded, and he had no insurance, and now he needs his money to repair his business (destroyed by the police department) and fix the home because of damage from Hurricane Katrina. Mama and I have no money to open a flower shop. We figure that we only need about $15,000 to open our business. Do you think FEMA would help us?

R.C., Erie, Pa.

Dear R.C. and Mama:

Thank you for a unique letter. I wish I had the liberty to share more of what you wrote with the folks who read this column. However, disclosure of some of the events you discussed might (in a small way) compromise the current investigation of the New Orleans Police Department. And I don’t want anything to happen to you, Daddy, Mama or me.

I received a “thank you” letter from the reader of whom you spoke in July of this year. He wrote that he received a check from FEMA that month for 100 percent of the money he lost because he was unable to make a trade. FEMA was passing out money like free samples.

I know of four readers between West Palm Beach, Fla., and Miami who got FEMA checks, and not one of them has any idea how their names and addresses got on the FEMA list. I’m sorry to say that I believe this is normal for government work.

I don’t know if FEMA will help you, but I strongly recommend that you contact the agency and demand assistance.

Also, there’s a multibillion-dollar congressional program administered by the Small Business Administration that provides big bucks to consumers to help them recover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The program is called STAR — for Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief — and is under the auspices of the SBA, where almost anybody can get a low-interest business loan.

In late September, I spent some time in Colorado Springs and discovered that Wells Fargo & Co. and Wachovia Corp. were handing out business loans. Now, Colorado Springs is a far distance from the Twin Towers, but loans were being passed out like Halloween candy. Big Wave Car Wash was approved for a $1.2 million SBA/STAR loan. Mission Point Liquors was approved for $400,000, Brick Wall Fire Protection Inc. was approved for $1.4 million and Classics Drive Thru Hamburgers was approved for $995,000. Meanwhile, Travel Inn, TW Lath & Stucco, Origin Communications, Sound Recording Studios and ACG Enterprises were all approved for loans ranging between $381,000 and $880,000.

A person of lesser character would contact the SBA, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, the two Pennsylvania senators, his congressional representative, the county commissioner, the mayor, the state representative, the chamber of commerce and several of the leading banks in Erie. My experience is that if you throw enough mud on the wall, some of it will stick.

Such a person would talk about wanting to open a shop under the SBA/STAR program but wouldn’t ask for $15,000 (I can’t imagine how anyone can do it on 15 grand anyway); rather he would tell them that he needed $550,000.

This shotgun approach is likely to get the process started much sooner, and it’s axiomatic that the greater the amount asked for, the quicker the loan approval.

Meanwhile, the SBA may come to the applicant’s home, the chamber might help with a business plan, the politicos could get him into the banks a lot quicker, the county commissioner could hurry the application and the banks might even take him to lunch.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@adelphia.net.

© Copley News Service