Although there has been immense loss and suffering after two hurricanes in 13 days, such challenging moments also bring out our humanity and compassion. NBC News’ Lester Holt reports.
IRS vows to race $10B in delayed Covid aid to help hurricane-hit businesses
Small business owners in the Southeast who’ve been waiting for long-delayed pandemic aid are pushing for that money to recover from this fall’s brutal hurricane season. The federal government says more of it is heading their way soon.
Around 400,000 claims worth $10 billion are now being processed for eligible business owners who applied for tax refunds under the Covid-era Employee Retention Credit program, the IRS said Thursday.
The agency didn’t give a concrete timeline or geographic details about the applicants, but it said Thursday that it’s accelerating work on those claims, and it estimated this summer that at least 1.4 million were still in queue.
“Our top priority is to quickly help taxpayers affected by the devastation of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton,” IRS spokesperson Mike Martinez told NBC News. He also highlighted recently announced tax relief for those in affected regions, including filing and payment extensions for individuals and businesses. “We understand the urgent need across the federal government to provide financial assistance to small businesses.”
In Fort Myers, residents prepare to rebuild — again
Reporting from Fort Myers, Florida
Fort Myers residents are starting to see the damage Hurricane Milton brought to their community. One woman shares her “heart-wrenching” process of rebuilding again after multiple hurricanes have come through in the recent years.
Hurricane Milton’s downpour around Tampa Bay was a 1-in-1,000-year rain event
Hurricane Milton dumped so much rain over parts of Florida’s Tampa Bay area that it qualified as a 1-in-1,000-year rainfall event.
St. Petersburg had 18.31 inches of rain — or more than 1.5 feet — in the 24-hour period during which the storm made landfall, according to precipitation data from the National Weather Service.
