Storms, straight line winds, tornadoes and flooding started hitting Indiana on August 11, 2026. On August 25, the President signed a major disaster declaration for it, FEMA 4933.
When the SBA published its notice on August 31, the incident period said “August 11, 2026 and continuing.” Nobody had written down an end date yet. That got fixed on September 9, in an amendment that showed up in the Federal Register on September 14: the storms officially ended August 24.
So on paper, Indiana got its declaration one day after the weather stopped. Yesterday we wrote about North Dakota waiting 84 days. Same kind of storm, same federal system, a completely different clock.
One disaster, two SBA numbers, four notices
Here’s the part that trips people up. FEMA 4933 is one disaster. The SBA split it into two:
- IN 20022, declarations 21807 and 21808, at 91 FR 55964. This is the full one. Homeowners, renters, businesses and non profits can apply for physical damage loans in 21 primary counties, and small businesses can apply for economic injury loans in those counties plus 35 contiguous ones.
- IN 20023, declarations 21810 and 21811, at 91 FR 56261. This is the Public Assistance Only version. It covers 11 counties, and only private non profits that provide essential services of a governmental nature can use it.
Then each one got its own amendment on September 14, at 91 FR 58247, saying the exact same thing: the incident period is August 11 through August 24, and “all other information in the original declaration remains unchanged.”
Four Federal Register documents. One set of storms. If you searched for “Indiana SBA disaster” and found the Public Assistance Only notice first, you’d think there was nothing in it for you. There is. It’s just in the other notice.
Who’s in
The 21 primary counties for home and business loans: Carroll, Dearborn, Decatur, Delaware, Fayette, Franklin, Hamilton, Hancock, Henry, LaPorte, Lake, Madison, Marion, Morgan, Porter, Pulaski, Randolph, Rush, Tipton, Union and Wayne.
The contiguous list for economic injury loans crosses five states: 26 more Indiana counties, plus Cook, Kankakee and Will in Illinois, Boone in Kentucky, Berrien in Michigan, and Butler, Darke, Hamilton and Preble in Ohio. Yes, there are two Hamilton Counties in this notice. One is in Indiana and is a primary county. The other is around Cincinnati and only qualifies for economic injury.
The rates, straight from the table: 3 percent for homeowners who can’t get credit elsewhere, 6 percent if they can. 4 percent for businesses without credit elsewhere, 8 percent with it. Non profits get 3.625 percent either way.
Indiana’s clock has never looked like this
We pulled every Indiana major disaster declaration since 2017 from OpenFEMA and left out COVID. There are four, and the gap between the end of the storm and the declaration looks like a coin that won’t land the same way twice:
- FEMA 4363, storms and flooding that ended March 4, 2018: declared 61 days later.
- FEMA 4704, storms and tornadoes that ended April 1, 2023: 14 days.
- FEMA 4882, storms that ended April 9, 2025: 104 days.
- FEMA 4933, this one: 1 day.
The 2025 one is worth a second look. It took 104 days, and in OpenFEMA’s records it came with no Individuals and Households Program in any of its 25 designated areas. This year’s came in a day and turned the program on in all 21. Same state, sixteen months apart.
The window closes October 25
The physical damage deadline is October 25, 2026. That’s 61 days from the declaration, and as of today, September 19, there are 36 days left. The economic injury deadline is May 25, 2027.
If a storm took your roof, flooded your basement or knocked out your shop anywhere in those 21 counties, the notice you want is IN 20022. Apply through the MySBA Loan Portal at lending.sba.gov, or call the SBA disaster customer service center at 1 800 659 2955.
Indiana got the fast declaration this time. It would be a shame to lose it to a search result that pointed at the wrong notice.