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The devastation wrought
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has understandably
dominated the news for the last few weeks. Hundreds
of thousands of hurricane victims (in my view, a better
term than "refugees") have been displaced,
making it the largest natural disaster in United States
history. In the first days and weeks after these disasters,
the victims obviously needed transportation out of
the affected areas and food, clothing, and shelter.
With Hurricane Rita having crashed down on the Gulf
Coast just days before this column goes to print,
many of the victims of Hurricane Katrina have been
victimized again. Thus, the focus of relief agencies'
efforts has remained where it must: victims' basic
human needs.
As victims of both hurricanes
determine where they will stay over the next days
and weeks, however, their focus will gradually turn
to the financial and legal problems caused by their
displacement. Many of the victims will need legal
help in their efforts to get government assistance,
seek unemployment compensation, make claims for insurance
benefits, deal with unscrupulous contractors, etc.
Many will not be able to afford to pay a lawyer. Members
of the Arkansas Bar Association, and in particular
the Young Lawyers Section ("YLS"), can and
should help. The American Bar Association ("ABA")
has provided pro bono assistance to storm victims
since 1978, when the ABA and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency ("FEMA") agreed to utilize
the ABA's Young Lawyers Division ("YLD")
in staffing toll-free hotlines open to disaster victims.
In 1992, the YLD entered into a written contract with
FEMA pursuant to which the Division agreed to mobilize
young lawyers to organize the provision of free civil
legal services to low-income disaster victims. The
hotlines are the vehicle through which those services
are provided. It is very important to note the YLD
responds only when the President declares a disaster
area and FEMA specifically asks the YLD to get involved.
FEMA specifies the area(s) in which the legal services
are to be provided. The YLD then contacts the YLD
district representative in the affected area(s). The
district representative then recruits volunteers to
staff the hotlines and provide assistance. If this
process sounds cumbersome, it is.
FEMA requested our Arkansas
YLS's assistance in response to the deadly tornados
of several years ago. Under the most able leadership
of Baxter Sharp, your YLS got together numerous volunteers
and provided countless hours of legal assistance.
In response to Hurricane Katrina, FEMA has asked the
YLD to provide disaster legal services to residents
of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Unfortunately,
FEMA and the ABA have asked that only lawyers licensed
in those three states take calls from the toll-free
hotlines. FEMA has not activated the disaster assistance
program in Arkansas, and in fact has rejected the
repeated offers of assistance made by our district
representative, Amy Freedman.
This roadblock to our
YLS providing assistance has been especially frustrating
given the fact that there were upwards of 50,000 victims
in shelters and camps all over Arkansas. Perhaps FEMA
was not fully aware of the numbers of hurricane victims
in Arkansas, as indicated by a FEMA official's question
to Governor Huckabee of whether Arkansas was housing
any victims. Regardless of the licensure issue, there
must be something we can do and the response we have
received from FEMA has been frustrating. This frustration
is obviously nowhere near as serious as that experienced
by victims lacking food and water. Nonetheless, from
this I can certainly understand the victims' anger
at the inept bureaucracy FEMA has become.
We did not expect to
hear from FEMA in the first few days after Hurricane
Katrina. Thus, after a conversation between a Red
Cross official and President Glenn Vasser, a few YLS
members went on September 3 to a shelter and one of
Governor Huckabee's Katrina Assistance Relief Effort
("KARE") intake centers to attempt to help.
They did not need our assistance. We then made several
calls to KARE personnel to discuss the possibility
of establishing a legal assistance component to that
program, but they have told us there have not been
many requests for legal assistance. That stands to
reason, as, again, most victims' legal issues will
not arise for weeks or months. Surely we can help
then. In sum, your YLS has made repeated efforts to
provide legal assistance, but we have been told we
are not needed at this time.
As this column goes
to print, I cannot guarantee we will be needed. But
if we are called, we must be ready. I have sent e-mails
seeking volunteers to young lawyers active in the
YLS, and the Arkansas Bar Association's website (www.arkbar.com)
has for weeks included much information on ways Association
members can help. These efforts have produced twenty
or so volunteers, but we will likely need more. You
need not be a young lawyer to volunteer. If you have
not already done so, please contact me at pwilson@wlj.com
if you are willing to handle hotline calls from victims
needing legal assistance. We will provide you with
materials and some basic training that will assist
you in answering questions from victims. I hope you
will volunteer to help; you may never have a better
or more rewarding use for your law degree.•
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