We asked the Small Business Administration about its ability to respond to natural disasters.

Officials there said much progress was made in 2009 to improve response rates and efficiency in the areas of loan application, loan approval, loan disbursement, technology services, administrative services, and personnel services.

Officials said that average processing times for disaster loans in 2009 were seven days for homes and 15 days for businesses, compared to average times in 2006 of 74 days for homes and 65 days for businesses. Additionally, the agency"s pre-Katrina disaster staffing was 880 individuals, compared to 1,000 full-time and 2,000 additional on-call reserve staff today.

In November, the SBA revised and streamlined its Disaster Recovery Plan, a detailed plan for deploying trained SBA employees in the event of a disaster. SBA staff members and federal emergency response partners will participate in a disaster simulation in spring 2010 to test the agency"s readiness to respond to a catastrophic disaster.

We'll need to see how the SBA handles a real disaster, but for now there's been enough progress for us to rate this promise In the Works.