Technola : Public Interest Law & Technology Updates & Commentary : Matthew Burnett & Kate Bladow : Tech Advice for the Non-Profit Legal Sector

After a fairly uneventful hurricane season, Hurricane Ida is headed toward the United States. Ida is expected to land somewhere between Louisiana and Florida as early as Tuesday, and communities in these areas are preparing for the storm.

However, a more dispersed group is also getting ready. Earlier today, Andy Carvin called for online volunteers to help update The Hurricane Information Center, a hurricane information portal that Technola highlighted in 2008. Volunteers are needed to help with several tasks, but Andy says:

Most importantly, we need to update the wiki: http://hurricanewiki.org. We need volunteers to review the wiki section by section and make sure that there are resources collected for Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Much of this was done last year but it can't hurt to be sure it's up to date. If you plan to work on a section of the wiki, please let us know which one.

If you can help, speak up. If you don't have time to help review the wiki, take a few seconds to pass on Andy's request for help. Maybe someone in your network does.

On a related note, anyone looking for disaster legal information should check out Matthew's previous post "Online Disaster Legal Resources." - K

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One of the Equal Justice Conference sessions that I was involved in, Making Recovery From Disasters Easier Through Technology, addressed various ways that technology is being used by legal services organizations and others in the wake of natural disasters. Below is a list of online resources on disaster law that were covered during the session, as well as a few others I came across while researching this post:

• DisasterLegalAid.org – A national disaster law resource for both lawyers and the public by the American Bar Association, Legal Services Corporation, National Legal Aid and Defender Association and Pro Bono Net. (See also KatrinaLegalAid.org for Katrina-specific resources.)
• ABA Disaster Law Resources – Legal information for victims and lawyers about disaster preparedness, resources and recovery by the American Bar Association, including the ABA’s Principles for Rule of Law in Times of Major Disaster (PDF) and the State Implementation of ABA Model Court Rule on Provision of Legal Services Following Determination of Major Disaster (PDF).
• Disasters & the Law Database – An excellent database of disaster law resources by the UC Berkeley School of Law.
• Immigrants and Disaster Assistance – Fact sheets, issue briefs, advocacy resources, articles, reports, and community education materials by the National Immigration Law Center, as well as links to disaster resources from other nonprofits and government agencies.

Additionally, many statewide advocate websites have disaster law resources, including the Georgia Online Justice Community, probono.net/iowa, probono.net/la, and FloridaAdvocate.org. If you're aware of other online disaster law resources, please include them in the comments. -M

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For those of you who have checked the About page, it should be no surprise that for the last week or so, I've been watching the flooding in North Dakota closely. Fortunately, my family and friends are safe and relatively warm and dry; however, with the Red River of the North headed towards a crest of 43 feet (by-passing the record crest of the 1897 flood) and with residents' too recent memories of the 1997 flood and Grand Forks' destruction, they are understandably anxious and worried.

From a distance of over 1500 miles, I've been incredibly impressed with the area's ability to get information out and recruit volunteers. Like most places, North Dakota currently has a group of people who have thoroughly integrated technology into their lives, a group that hasn't, and a group that is somewhere in between, so the effort to get information out has been a combination of traditional and new media efforts. In addition to round-the-clock news coverage from the Fargo Forum, KFGO, and KVLY TV, technology played a key role. A few of the tools that are being used and that might interest Technola readers:

• Twitter: People are reporting the current flood stage and other current news. (Search hashtags: #flood09, #fargoflood, #redriver, #NDfloods.)
• A Facebook group is a place to connect with others and gather information.
• Mapping is being used to create a mashup of flood announcements, display areas being evacuated, and identify areas in danger at different flood stages.
• Automatic telephone notifications are being used to round up volunteers and notify people who need to evacuate.
  
• YouTube videos are being used to instruct people on how to build a sandbag dike and show what sandbagging is like.

People unfamiliar with the North Dakota landscape may enjoy this great series of photos from USGS pointed out on Twitter by Steve Drees. They document the rise of the river in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which is about 100 miles north of Fargo. You can also check out the Fargo SkyCam to see the level of the Red River to see the current level there.

Although I feel like we have to mention it too often, free legal resources exist for people recovering from disasters at National Disaster Legal Aid site. In addition, ABA LTRC posted a round up of disaster resources yesterday. - K

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"A new Web site launched by four national legal organizations will help victims of disasters find valuable information and assistance to speed recovery from hurricanes, fires, floods or other disasters. The site is sponsored by the American Bar Association, Legal Services Corporation, National Legal Aid & Defender Association and Pro Bono Net." You can read the full press release here and visit the new site here. -M

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Texas legal aid organizations and the Houston Bar Association are using LiveHelp to assist Texans affected by Hurricane Ike in obtaining free legal information:

The new service ... is available now and enables Hurricane Ike victims to conduct a live online chat with attorneys recruited by the Houston Volunteer Lawyers Program. Attorneys will answer questions and also refer those seeking help to legal resources specific to FEMA appeals and other disaster-related issues.

Funding for this project was provided by the Texas Access to Justice Foundation. The LiveHelp project was funded by the Legal Services Corporation and developed by Pro Bono Net. For more information about this project, read the full press release here. For more information about LiveHelp, contact Liz Keith (lkeith at probono.net). -M

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If anyone is interested in or needs assistance with hurricane-related issues, they should check out The Hurricane Information Center. Put together by Andy Carvin from National Public Radio and a mess of people that he convinced to help, this website is a portal for all of the information that is flying around about this year's hurricanes. More information about this site is available here on the FastCompany site and here on the NPR site. And as Matthew mentioned last week, free legal assistance is being offered by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. You can stay up-to-date with their efforts either through their blog or by following them on Twitter. - K

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A press release from the Texas Legal Services Center on legal resources available for victims of Hurricane Ike. Also, be sure to check out the recently launched National Disaster Legal Aid website, a partnership of the ABA, NLADA, LSC, and Pro Bono Net. -M

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The NTEN blog and e-newsletter feature an article by Lisa Stansky: Technology's Role In Rebuilding New Orleans. Lisa is the Web Site Content Coordinator for LawHelp.org/LA and is located at the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation. -K

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