The 2023 Disaster Resilience Symposium: A Look Into the Future of Collaboration & Community-Building

I am an introvert at heart, but I love meeting people with new ideas and who are willing to share their knowledge with others. This is my first time using LinkedIn's article feature, but I am excited to share a few insights as an attendee at the first Disaster Resilience Symposium at Stetson University College of Law in Florida this week. The event brought together over 100 experts in disaster law and advocates working together to build community resilience. It was co-hosted by Equal Justice Works , the American Bar Association 's Standing Committee on Disaster Response and Preparedness, and the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Disaster Legal Services Program. The symposium happened as part of Disaster Resilience Awareness Month, a collaborative effort of Equal Justice Works, Pro Bono Net , and other national organizations to spread awareness about the impact of disasters and solutions we can deploy to help our communities adapt to climate change.

After attending seven sessions and hearing from keynote speakers, here are a few things that stood out to me:

"Major disasters are not going to be unprecedented when they happen again."

I enjoyed Robert Verchick's keynote remarks during one of the lunch breaks. Robert is the Gauthier-St. Martin Chair in Environmental Law and Professor at Loyola University New Orleans and Senior Fellow at the Tulane University Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. He opened his speech by telling a story about an octopus found in a Miami parking garage in 2016 due to flooding and rising sea levels. I thought it was an effective way to draw attention to the startling facts about extreme heat weather, power outages, and other crises that have been the cause of recent federal legislation and increased funding as communities grapple with the effects of these events. Verchick ended his remarks by offering several solutions for adapting to climate change, including:

• Incorporating climate projections into planning for our communities - As Verchick described it, "relying on past disasters [for planning] is a recipe for disaster." At another session, Verchick and his co-panelist, Bryan Sky-Eagle, Deputy Chief at the Houston Fire Department, pointed to Maine's Climate Council and climate adaptation laws as an example of planning with climate resilience in mind.
• Mapping the social vulnerability of communities - The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has social vulnerability index metrics by state, territory, and district. These metrics can help determine a specific community's risk before or in the wake of a disaster. Social vulnerability mapping reminded me of the Self-Represented Litigation Network's data story maps to predict and prepare for disaster-related needs. Stronger than the Storm, How Civil Legal Help is Vital to Recovery from Hurricane Florence revealed information about impacted communities (e.g., people with disabilities that civil legal aid could help with accessing housing and health services) in North Carolina and South Carolina after Hurricane Florence in 2018. Access to justice advocates used the story maps to make a case for civil legal aid when fundraising as well as to inform hiring needs and strategic communications.

Of course, I was excited to learn Verchick had just released a book on climate resilience and justice. Attendees could purchase it, so I didn't miss the opportunity to get my copy signed.

Don't underestimate the power behind mutual aid and collaborations in disaster response.

The concept of mutual aid, which Cornell Law defines as the "voluntary?exchange?of services and resources between members of society for mutual?benefit," came up multiple times during the event. Mutual aid is not new, and it's common in times of disaster, including during COVID-19. I wrote about this in Ms. JD's blog after Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico and Bianca Graulau, a Puerto Rican independent reporter, is working on a story about this (I hope you'll follow her if you're not already). Speakers cited collaborative strategies as key in delivering legal assistance when asked about their experiences after Hurricane Ian hit parts of Florida last year. They shared several examples of what worked at their organizations:

• Reaching out to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Voluntary Agency Liaisons, commonly referred to as VALs, to talk about legal services and legal issues arising from the disaster;
• Offering to give community-based organizations and churches presentations about legal aid and services;
• Sharing updates and community resources with members of the legal community (e.g., https://www.fladvocate.org/disaster/); and
• Collaborating with libraries and faith-based organizations to educate communities about how lawyers can help.

Despite major disaster responses in recent years, people still face many hurdles in obtaining disaster assistance and getting a fair shot at recovery.

Some speakers talked about the challenges they still see in their day-to-day work in disaster response, including:

• The FEMA application - Experts said that the process to apply to FEMA and other federal programs should be simpler for disaster survivors. This is consistent with a report published by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last year. After assessing the federal responses to Hurricanes Harvey and María, the Commission found a need "for?clearer guidelines to apply for aid?to include a more?streamlined portal?for the intake of all federal disaster assistance." This includes the Small Business Administration disaster loan process.
• People in disaster-impacted areas that do not get approval for FEMA's Individual Assistance program need greater support.
• The recovery path for people with low incomes and disabilities is more challenging, especially in rural areas. This is also consistent with another finding from the report cited above, where the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that the "recovery and mitigation process should?focus on survivors with the greatest needs, particularly people of color, low-income people, people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQ communities, and other marginalized individuals, and to provide a sufficient number of staff fluent in the various languages found in the affected areas."

Overcoming deliberate indifference to support disaster survivors with disabilities.

One of the sessions focused on meaningful access in disaster response. Speakers discussed the implications of overlooking the needs of individuals with disabilities, who are 2-to-4 times more likely to die or be injured after a disaster. Is this general unawareness or deliberate indifference to the lives of our neighbors with access needs? Meaningful access and recovery after a disaster can't happen if people with disabilities are not part of the planning process. This is what Disability Rights Texas and the law firm Winston Strawn LLP, Daniel & Beshara, P.C. are arguing in a lawsuit filed earlier this year against the City of San Antonio. Speakers of this session also offered several solutions to ensure inclusive planning, including:

• Creating task forces to specifically focus on sirens alerting an emergency;
• To avoid forced institutionalization, facilitating better transitions from shelters if a person's house was destroyed;
• Connecting centers for independent living with emergency management officials;
• Promoting the hiring and compensation of people with disabilities to lead strategic planning work; and
• Moving away from "special needs registries," which are voluntary and create a false sense of reliance in times of emergencies.

During a disaster simulation, people were frustrated when I couldn't communicate with them in English. This validated the real experiences of many disaster survivors who speak a language other than English when accessing recovery programs.

The last day of the symposium included a simulation where attendees (primarily lawyers) had to navigate recovering from a disaster in the fictitious town "Everytown." Facilitators provided them with instructions about what to do (e.g., purchase emergency supplies with the resources they were given, seek legal aid help, and apply for disaster assistance). The Alameda County Bar Association developed this exercise in California, and its purpose is to highlight the inequities many low-to-moderate-income people face in disaster recovery.

I volunteered to be part of one of the community "stations" and played the role of a grocery store manager by selling food and filling prescriptions for community members. The facilitators gave me particular instructions about how I would interact with "store customers." There was also one important caveat: I needed to speak a language that wasn't English and pretend I was inconvenienced when people failed to understand me. This was easy for me since my native language is Spanish, and the interactions were indicative of language access challenges:

• When people visited my grocery store and realized they didn't speak my language, they attempted to communicate with their hands and documentation. But after a while, they expressed frustration and either gave up or acquiesced to my actions.
• One person took out her phone to use Google Translate and communicate with me, but the communication was not 100% accurate.
• Another person said, "I feel like I got robbed," when I insisted on selling emergency supplies at an increased price after a fake hurricane (this represented the practice of price gouging by businesses).
• At least two people who knew some Spanish attempted to help a person who only spoke English, which pointed to the concept of mutual aid discussed above.
• Only a few people asked for external help to complete their task when communicating with me.

After the simulation, we gathered to discuss participants' reflections. ?I was amazed by the admission of several people who had a legal problem as part of their fake situation, but never considered visiting the legal aid community station (reminder that most participants were lawyers).?I quickly imagined Professor Rebecca L. Sandefur, who has written extensively on how most people understand their civil legal problems, nodding in silence.

A quick visit to the St. Pete Pier

The weather in St. Petersburg was still too chilly for me, but it was nice to meet with a few colleagues at the St. Pete Pier for pizza.

Jeanne Ortiz-Ortiz is a Senior Program Manager at Pro Bono Net, a national nonprofit based in NYC that expands access to justice through innovation and technology. She is the Vice-Director of the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Disaster Legal Services Program. This national volunteer-run program supports local legal aid organizations and bar associations to provide free and temporary legal services to disaster survivors. Jeanne is also the co-author of Touro Law Review’s “Disaster Legal Tech: Strategies for Providing Legal Information to Survivors" and has served as a Chairperson for Practising Law Institute's CLE programs on disaster response and climate-driven emergencies.