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The session will be recorded and we will -- I'll send you an email once it's posted later on today.

I'll also automatically send you a certificate for attending today's session.

We also encourage you to share the recording, as well as our other library-specific courses in the web junction catalog.

All of these are available for free to all who work or volunteer in libraries.

Thanks to the support of OCLC and agency -- state library agencies across the country.

If you're new to web junction, we encourage you to subscribe to crossroads.

It's an excellent way to stay up to date on all things happening at web junction.

I'm going to post the link to that page.

You can go ahead and subscribe there.

I'm going to go ahead and introduce our moderator for today.

My colleague, brooke Doyle is the senior project coordinator for web junction and OCLC research.

She's been working on this project and has all sorts of great passion and ideas around it as well.

She's going to get us started and introduce us to our presenters for today.

Thank you so much, brooke.

>> Thank you, Jennifer.

I'm thrilled to be here.

I think we're going to have a great hour today.

I am so lucky to be joined by Kathy Grunewald, disaster coordinator, attorney at legal services of north Florida, and Sara Pic, head of public services at the law library of Louisiana.

They are going to be sharing their expertise today.

When I ask them some questions about how to deal with the legal issues following a natural disaster.

I really hope you'll be inspired by what they've taught us.

And then inspired to learn more as well.

To help our patrons facing natural disasters.

Let's start by trying to get a little sense of what your communities are like.

We know that natural disasters are more frequent.

We know that they're affecting places beyond who gets wildfires and hurricanes.

What natural disasters has your community faced or preparing to face.

If you could put your answers in chat, it would be great to see what our group has today.

We've got some flooding and tornadoes.

Tornadic.

I don't think I've heard that word yet.

Hurricanes, hurricanes, hurricanes.

It's certainly hurricane season.

We started by chatting with that because Kathy and Sara are in hurricane land.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Sure.

Right.

When we went to the FEMA list of different types of disasters when we began this work, it was a really long list and does include things like terrorism and things.

Bioterrorism as well.

Sure.

Great.

I shouldn't say great.

That's not good to read these lists.

But it's helpful to know.

Sure.

They come in all different flavors, unfortunately.

But they really are widespread and we're all going to be facing them if we haven't already.

I want to be really clear on what today's webinar is about.

It is not comprehensive disaster preparation for your library, such as how to make sure that your collection doesn't -- is safe in a flood.

This is really introducing web junction's more narrowly focused courses that just launched in the last week on the civil legal issues of -- facing natural disasters.

The webinar and the new courses build on our foundational courses called creating pathways to civil legal justice.

About libraries role in access to justice.

If legal reference is new to you, I would say those courses are a great place to start.

Those foundational courses, creating pathways to civil legal justice.

And if the distinction between advice and information for example is new to you, there's some great information.

That's a really important thing to understand before you begin this work.

But we'll make sure today that you will leave with clear information on how to enroll in those foundational courses, as well as our new courses specific to natural disasters.

We know natural disasters impact our lives in our physical environments in so many ways.

I want to acknowledge the emotional toll that this work does take.

It is really difficult and we will touch on that today.

We will obviously not have time to do a deep dive on really any of this.

We're staying pretty high level.

But I do want to acknowledge the emotional toll of this work.

You'll see our agenda here.

I'll let you take a second to peruse that.

That's our roadmap.

I'll hope you'll leave with some important learning from today as well as being inspired to learn more and dive into the courses.

Some of you may know that September is national preparedness month.

So you are taking steps to prepare by showing up today.

So congratulations.

Any education we can do for ourselves and then pass on to our patrons will go a long way when facing a disaster.

I will say, having been involved in this project for the last few months, it's really taken my preparation game up quite a bit.

It feels empowering to do that work.

I hope you'll feel empowered to be here and learning more yourselves.

So let's dive in.

I'm going to start with our first question for Sara.

How can staff have a trauma-informed approach to patrons after a natural disaster?

These can be so devastating and patrons are going to show up really traumatized.

How can staff take a trauma-informed approach as they begin to deal with patrons.

>> SARA PIC:  I think this is such a good question and great place to start.

Because libraries are thinking a lot more about how to take trauma-informed stance when they're working with their patrons.

It also helps to better support the staff as well.

I actually recently did a presentation on vicarious trauma.

We can talk about that as well when we talk about trauma-informed care.

But this graphic up here is, I thought, a good place to start.

So this is the ACE study, which that stands for adverse childhood and community experiences.

It was conducted by the centers for disease control and kaiser permanente in the mid-1990s.

It basically focuses on how the traumatic childhood events and also community experiences can negatively affect adult health.

So this framing here, it basically shows how the -- we have the adverse childhood and community experiences of both.

Occurring in the household that are listed.

The ones in the community and then the ones in the environment.

When these ACEs are left unaddressed, it can cause toxic stress.

This can harm the ability of children, families, organizations, systems, the entire community really.

And it reduces our ability, these traumas, to respond to stressful events with resiliency.

We're all going to experience stress and trauma, but it's a lot about how we respond.

So the research has shown, there are ways to reduce and heal from toxic stress and to build healthy, caring, resilient communities.

So if we think about the civil legal issues that occur that -- 

after a disaster, just in general, civil legal issues that people face as a type of trauma, we, as librarians, can come to commit to learn how trauma-informed care really makes a difference in how we communicate with our patrons in these really stressful situations.

So just to talk about that just a little bit more about ways to actually implement trauma-informed care, I did want to mention when I was preparing to give a presentation on this topic earlier this summer, I used a really great workbook from the ALA on trauma-informed care.

So if someone is looking to add something to their collection, I highly recommend it.

It was developed by the social worker task force of ALA.

Just some of the main things to think about are patrons may need to talk first before getting to their need.

That can be really hard when you're in a reference interview and really thinking, you're zeroing in, I want to get to the issue at hand so I can start identifying how to answer that real question.

But as many of us probably learned when we've maybe been in school, learning about how to do a reference interview, we have to listen first.

So really just letting them talk can be a really a way to show empathy and build resilience in our patrons.

Additionally, there's often very little choice in much of the processes, particularly in the processes after natural disasters.

You're dealing with a lot of government agencies, a lot of bureaucracy that you have to get through.

Offer choices wherever you can.

I have toddlers and that's also something they tell you when parenting young children, if you're trying to prevent tantrums, offer them two choices.

That can be the difference.

It's not that much different with adults.

Adult tantrum, might be a meltdown or something like that.

Giving choices makes people feel empowered.

As much as you can offer small choices to people, the better.

So, again, slowing down, listen empathetically, breaking things down to simple steps.

That is really hard, but really key.

So as much as you can really bullet point it in your head before you're trying to explain to the patron what's going to happen, and not rush through, so it can be step one.

Summarize what needs to happen.

Step two -- part of that is going to be about making sure you're prepared ahead of time for these types of questions that arise in the civil legal issues after natural disasters, which we will talk about.

Getting prepared, slowing down and breaking things down.

Simple steps.

And then as I mentioned, I recently worked on a session on vicarious trauma, you, as a -- 

as library staff, you're going to be hearing some really difficult stories.

And this can result in feeling that trauma yourself.

In addition, as a community member, you may be experiencing the exact same traumas well.

You may be dealing with the exact same hurricane.

You know, we had a very large hurricane and we have often in Louisiana, but we had one last year.

I evacuated and I was trying to work with my patrons who were dealing with their issues, while I was not even in my own house and trying to get my own government bureaucracy dealt with.

So part of trauma-informed care for your patrons is also taking care of yourself.

Really, taking those breaks to process, hearing the stories, reaching out for support when you need it to talk with people and really as much as possible, being clear about expectations with the patrons and just understanding our role is as librarians,s is really to identify information, not to solve all of their life problems.

>> You're muted.

Sorry.

Great stuff.

You missed it.

Thank you for -- it's a really great place to start and frame this conversation with the significance of the -- and severity of the issue.

Thank you for sharing that.

Preparation, one of my favorite topics.

If you leave remembering nothing, remember that preparation is so important.

We can prevent a lot of headaches on the back end by being prepared.

I'm going to start with Kathy.

If you can really just address, why is preparation critical for the libraries?

I'm not talking about the individual, but the library.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  Well, people are going to go to the library after the disaster to find out about how to get assistance.

I know that from my own experience.

Your community knows where you're located.

They know you have computers.

They know you have Internet access.

Bathrooms, air conditioning and heating and librarians and staff, they already trust to know answers or to find the answers to their questions.

So no question, they're going to be there at your building after the disaster.

But possibly, y'all are going to have limitations as well.

But you probably already have a continuity of operations plan to help you determine what reopening after a disaster event looks like.

So before -- go ahead, take time to look at that plan or if you don't have one, to develop it and be ready to implement it as soon as possible.

You know, you may have to adjust your rules or your requirements that you used to have to meet the needs of disaster survivors.

One example would be, you normally charge for copies, you may want to not charge for a period of time.

Remember, people may not have a lot of money at that point.

There may not be ATM machines that are open or they may not be able to get to where they can get money.

So they're not going to have the money for copies, but they're going to need copies of lots of documents.

They need to make insurance claims, apply for FEMA assistance or other government assistance.

They may not have access to the funds at that time.

So know in advance under what circumstances you can adjust those rules.

Think about it before the storm or whatever event happens.

Also, remember that people are going to be coming in there for assistance and going to be bringing their children.

So there may be more children in there than you're used to.

It's a good idea to think ahead and have extra activities for them to work on while their parents are asking you questions or applying for assistance.

A really good example of adjusting your rules for libraries was one that we had here in Florida during the pandemic.

In Florida, many people were applying for pandemic unemployment during the pandemic.

And the system was failing folks.

They were having to wait hours to get into the system.

And libraries were closed at that time.

So in Florida, we have dedicated e-government computers for people to go in and apply for benefits, but they couldn't do that.

Libraries took it upon themselves to make copies of paper applications and just leave them outside of the library for the patrons to pick up and apply.

To me, that's just a very good example of adjusting to the needs of the community and thinking in advance what you might be able to do if some of the systems are down.

>> That's great.

Thank you, Kathy.

Sara, what do you have to add?

>> SARA PIC:  As Kathy was just saying, there's so much we can do even if we're not physically reopened.

Even if we're not physically in our main location.

As I mentioned, I evacuated for a hurricane last year.

I was gone for about two weeks.

But we all did have laptops here and we have a continuity of operations plan.

We knew when we left work, everyone bring your laptop.

Maybe the hurricane won't come here.

Bring your laptop.

The lurn did come here.

We all had to evacuate.

I thought to myself, okay, I know people will be looking for information quickly.

I think it ended up being the biggest storm that ever hit Louisiana.

Hurricane Ida last year.

One of the biggest.

And we used lib guide software, I'm sure you use something similar to develop online research guides.

I thought let me get the resources in one place.

I work -- I'm a law librarian part of the Louisiana Supreme Court.

We're a trusted government authority.

Let's get that information out there.

I know there's a going to be a lot of people trying to prey on disaster victims, unfortunately, too.

Let's try and gather information in one place and get all of the court orders about different delays and different court proceedings, but also just the links to FEMA, which we'll be talking more about and all the other types of processes.

That's something I could do even when I was evacuated.

I had my laptop and we were all communicating.

There's just being really creative and thinking about how you can serve people, you know, and meet their information needs wherever you might be.

It's important.

>> Those are great examples to be proactive and think ahead.

What can we think about now to assist patrons if this happens.

Those are great answers.

Thanks.

So the immediate aftermath, we're going to kind of talk about time distinctions throughout this webinar.

What are the immediate needs and immediate legal issues that are going to show up at the library right away.

Kathy, I'm going to ask you to start for this one.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  All right, great.

Right away, immediately, you're going to have people coming to the library seeking you out to find out where they can get the basics.

Food, water, maybe a change of clothes, maybe somebody forgot to pack their dog food or cat food and so they need some pet assistance for their pet.

Or even a shelter.

A lot of folks don't think that they need a shelter before a storm or some other disaster, but afterwards, because of damage, they may need one.

So immediately afterwards, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, state and local emergency management are going to be on the ground in the impacted areas, providing those essential needs.

It's important for you to know in advance where they're going to be located.

That's easy to find out.

Pick up the phone and give a call.

We're going to talk about making connections a little bit later on.

But you can always call Red Cross or Salvation Army and ask them where they're going to be so that you will know where to send people.

It helps them out, too.

Because people know where to go.

Also, some folks, as I said before, may not have thought about a shelter and they needed a place to stay.

And I'm sure that all states, just like Florida, has a shelter plan in place right now.

So when you get off of this webinar, you can go Google the shelter plan for the state that you're in and you're going to find it.

What that plan is going to tell you is really important information about where shelters are located.

Who can stay there?

Whether pets are allowed.

That's a big question now.

And whether special needs -- 

where the special needs shelters that may be located in your community.

This is all information you can know in advance of the event.

I mean, you don't want to spend your time searching for the shelter plan while a long line of people are waiting in line to ask you about applying for FEMA.

We're going to talk about that in a minute.

But immediately, one of the first kind of questions you're going to ask is about how to get assistance after people get the food and the water that they need.

>> Great.

Thank you.

What about the legal issues.

>> SARA PIC:  Yeah, right.

Exactly.

You're going to start to see the legal issues.

They a may not even necessarily, your patrons may not identify the legal issue.

But the legal issues are going to come up.

The landlord tenant issues are -- happen right away.

Particularly when you're dealing with people who evacuated and trying to come back.

So it's just important to start to familiarize yourself with those.

Particularly, again, with the referrals, which we'll be talking about more in the presentation.

Because, you know, your role is not to be the attorney for the people in landlord/tenant issues.

But maybe it's to refer to an attorney or some kind of legal information, advice service.

So it's just -- it's learning a little bit about the issue ahead of time.

Landlord tenant issues to recognize the words.

When people are coming in, saying my landlord is telling me I have to -- I evacuated and my landlord is trying to evict me now.

Listening for those types of key words and knowing, okay, these are the kinds of steps I need to take to make sure they get the right information and who to refer them to.

But there are a lot of civil legal issues that come up.

As brooke mentioned earlier, there's a larger course that dives deep into some of these other legal issues as well.

Also one way that you can really help people as librarians that we really help people is to find information.

That's one of the main things we do.

For instance, people are going to start having to fill out these applications for government aid or trying to get homeowners or renters insurance policy issues and they're going to need copies of deeds, copies of electric bill, these -- all these things.

Just the phone number to their insurance.

Not I have that in my phone because I live in Louisiana and we deal with this.

But not everyone does.

That's one of the places where you can fill a really immediate but important need for your patrons is helping them actually find this information that they're going to need.

And you know, as Kathy mentioned also just all the basics of Wi-Fi, charging stations, and just online access for folks.

>>Brooke: Great, thank you.

The library can play an important role in this space and I hope you leave agreeing with that statement and feeling you have a place to start to fill that role.

Okay.

Kathy, I'm going to give you -- 

ask you to kind of give us an introduction to the different types of assistance patrons might have access to and how the library can help navigate these pockets of assistance.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  Okay, yeah.

These are the things on the slide now that are going to come up, I think, pretty quickly after people get those immediate needs we talked about earlier met.

So immediately after president declares a disaster approved for individual assistance, patrons will be asking about applying for FEMA.

But patrons with homeowners insurance will need to start first with filing a claim with their insurance company and then apply for FEMA.

I mean, expect some folks to even ask you if they even need to file with their insurance company because they're afraid their premiums will want to go up and they think that FEMA is going to take care of everything and maybe they don't have to file for insurance.

Because they believe that FEMA is going to get their home back to the way it was before.

But that may not be the case.

FEMA is going to give you or them only enough money to get their home back to a position where it's safe, sanitary and habitable.

For example, if your patron lives in a house with two bathrooms and both are damaged, you may only get assistance from FEMA to repair the one bathroom because that's all that's necessary to get your house back to habitable.

The maximum amount of money that you can receive from FEMA now is just under $38,000 for housing assistance.

For many people, that's not going to restore their property to where it was before the storm.

Also, most people do not get the maximum amount of assistance.

And they're only going to get FEMA assistance if their insurance doesn't bring their home back to habitable.

So even though they have damage, if they have insurance, they may not get any FEMA assistance at all for their house.

So they're going to be coming in, asking about the FEMA assistance.

They're also going to have heard that they can get FEMA assistance for needs other than housing.

Such as transportation or furniture or appliances.

There's also a limit to that of about $38,000.

But that is only if you don't have insurance coverage for that is all.

For the first place many people are going to start with their insurance company and then they're going to apply for FEMA.

Many won't get FEMA.

For folks without insurance, then of course, they're going to start with applying for FEMA.

I know you see on the slide information about SBA.

And I know when I first started working and doing disaster legal issues, I was like why is the small business administration involved in disaster recovery for individuals?

Well, it is.

And many people are confused by that because they will be referred by FEMA to SBA to apply for a low-interest disaster loan to help them complete their recovery.

We're going to talk about that in the course more about how FEMA, the insurance and the SBA are all related.

Because one thing that FEMA won't do is duplicate any benefits or pay out where another entity has paid.

Most particularly your insurance.

Also, FEMA says that it takes about 20 minutes to complete an application.

But as you know, from helping people complete applications online for government assistance of all kinds of forms, that depends on the person and if that person has gathered all the information necessary to complete the application.

So just as Sara said, it's going to be helpful to know what is the FEMA application asks for.

So I hope you'll take a look at the application in advance of a storm so you'll know what patron needs.

So I mean, they need things like their insurance, their insurance policy number, if they have it.

They need to have a very good description of the kind of damage they have.

They need to know how to take pictures off of their phone and send with an application so that they can prove what their damage is.

While I'm talking about pictures and we're talking about preparation, I always tell people to take pictures before a storm and after a storm.

So if there's any confusion about the damage that is caused at your property, you'll be able to show, your insurance company or FEMA that is this is the way my property looked before the storm and this is the way that my house or my property looks now after the storm.

So pretty clearly, this damage was caused by the disaster.

So then know that patrons are going to mail that -- they're going to say what happens [ Audio issue ]

There's going to be an inspection.

During COVID, those inspections with COVID, I mean, were virtual and they still need -- still may be virtual, some of them.

Within about ten days to two weeks, they're going to receive a determination letter.

They may bring that into the library for more information.

They need to read that carefully because they can appeal any part of that that they don't like.

Sometimes it's the -- it may determine that they're not getting an award.

But it's because they need something really simple that you can help people.

Maybe information or a correct address or something like that, that you can make sure that you help them find to get to them.

They only have 60 days to appeal.

So you don't -- you don't want to wait until the 60th day.

That slows down your recovery.

Let's assume somebody does come in [ Lost audio ]

We still want to encourage them to appeal.

You do too.

We're going to talk about that there are forms online forms that will help people do an appeal letter and get the information that FEMA needs to make those determinations.

>> Brooke: Thank you, Kathy.

I want to emphasize that the course will go into this in much more depth.

Don't feel like you have to figure this out now.

It's a high level overview of there are ways to get assistance and there are a lot of dependencies between them, it is a complex process that the courses will help you get a better handle on.

Kathy, I'm going to ask you to keep going and talk about what are some of the most common patron legal issues to come in.

Sara, alluded to landlord tenant.

What else can we expect?

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  I've already spoken about FEMA.

FEMA is going to be a very common legal problem.

Not so much applying for the -- 

applying and filling out the application.

But almost -- a lot of people are going to want to appeal.

There's a 60-day deadline.

If they passed it, they should go ahead and appeal.

Because they can state that they have a good reason for missing that deadline.

The good reason could be, hey, there was a disaster.

I've been moved out of my home or I'm staying someplace else.

Another, as Sara mentioned, are landlord-sten ant issues.

After hurricane Michael in Florida, we had hundreds of landlord-tenant cases coming up.

Unfortunately, some landlords see the disaster as an opportunity for increased rent because so many recovery workers will be coming into your community.

Or a landlord may have had a daughter or relative who needs the apartment because their home was damaged.

And they just go and say, they think the rules may not apply now.

But landlords still have to follow the laws of their state in order to evict someone out of their unit.

So if someone comes into the library frantic because the landlord has changed the locks or taken off the front door, they need immediate referral to legal aid or to a lawyer referral service.

Not only because those cases are time-sensitive, but landlords have to follow that eviction process.

I mean, in my experience, people are going to be coming into the library.

You're probably going to get as many landlord tenant questions as you do FEMA questions.

A lot of people also, I've heard about price gouging.

They think that if the price of something is higher after the disaster, it's price gouging and they should get their money back or shouldn't have to pay for that.

Many states have a price gouging statute.

I know we do in Florida.

You want to take a look at that.

This is going to be an easy answer.

Those statutes usually only cover certain items and may last for only a limited amount of time.

So for example, if somebody goes into a store to buy Coca-Cola and the coke or some other beverage has gone up real high, it's probably not going to be covered by the price gouging statute.

It won't make a difference.

Water, however, might be a part of the price gouging statute and that might be covered.

For most of those, that involves calling a state agency and making a price gouging complaint.

The legal issues, of course, can be in a variety of areas.

Not just housing or government assistance.

It's going to show up in contractor scams.

Unfortunately, if you've got a really big disaster, contractors come from all over the country to your state.

And some of them are not as honest or as reputable as others.

So talking to patrons about how to find if a contractor is licensed in your state is a very good thing to know.

Also, where can they get their questions answered about assignment of insurance benefits or insurance disputes.

Even child custody questions come up in advance or after a disaster.

Because people have to move and if they have certain child custody arrangements, it may prevent them from moving.

All of those are problems that are going to show up after the disaster.

But the interesting thing, I guess, is that they start immediately, but they can last for weeks or even months or, unfortunately, years, to keep going on.

I want to say -- I know somebody wrote this in the chat.

They said after disasters their library was referred to as an essential service.

And so you are an essential service.

The Stafford act is the federal statute that empowers the Presidents to make a major disaster declaration.

That begins the process of disaster assistance.

And libraries are included in that act as an essential service.

So you want to become involved in the disaster network in your community and look up the local or Coe add community organizations active in disasters and local BOADs in your area.

I think I went a little far forward right there.

>> That's okay.

I know you're passionate about that.

You'll have another chance to plug those.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  I'll bring that up again.

>> For sure.

Thanks for giving us kind of an overview of the issues and acknowledging how long lasting some will be.

Our third course is dealing with the long tail of some of these.

Okay.

I'm going to ask -- the good news, I think some of this can feel overwhelming at this point in the information down -- if this is new to you.

Like, wow, there's a lot to this.

The good news is that this is not like Sara said, it's not the library's problem to solve.

It's a challenge to connect to the right people to help.

The good news is there's lots of legal partners.

Sara is going to talk a little bit about where to find some of those legal partners to help in this work.

>> SARA PIC:  That is definitely the good news.

You are 100% not alone.

There probably are as librarians, you know, we think of ourselves as experts in finding the information, not the information itself.

But there are people that are the experts in the information itself.

They are ready and they want to be there to talk to you.

Kathy is one of them, for instance.

Yeah.

There are so many legal aid partners.

I do want to mention asbrooke mentioned, the foundational civil legal issues course and we talk a lot about forming these kinds of partnerships in that course as well.

If you're just wondering at all how would I even go about finding partners, I just wanted to highlight that.

So, yeah.

One of the places you can start is to look for your local legal aid.

That is -- these are the attorneys that are federally and often state and locally funded to help with these types of issues.

And they are serving many of their clients also your patrons.

Find your local legal aid, connect with them.

They'll be happy to talk with you, I promise.

I was just asked to speak on the first Louisiana disaster legal summit and people are just so excited to have me there as a librarian.

I'm a law librarian.

You know, I'm trying to make sure the public librarians know they should be there.

This is exactly the kind of place they should be going to meet the other -- these legal aid attorneys working on these issues.

These are the people you're going to be referring your patrons to.

They are going to be helping with a lot of the landlord tenant issues in particular.

FEMA appeals and things like that.

Disaster legal services is also a really great resource.

It's basically FEMA provides -- 

FEMA, through an agreement with the young lawyers division of the American Bar Association, as disaster legal assistance program.

They basically are volunteer lawyers activated after disaster throughout the country.

So not necessarily just locally in your area.

So you know, even though, for instance, we may have hurricanes all the time in Louisiana, we refer people to disaster legal assistance.

They may be talking to people in Michigan.

And the ABA -- so the disaster legal assistance through the ABA, young lawyers division, they're going to help with insurance claims and that can be not just as homeowners and renters, but also medical bills, loss of life sometimes, other things like that, insurance.

They can help with wills, powers of attorney, other legal papers might have been lost during a disaster.

One of the things that I know that we talk about in the larger considers on civil legal issues is trying to make sure you grab all those papers before you evacuate, for instance.

But you're not always able to.

Particularly some earthquakes, we deal with hurricanes here, but earthquakes are one I think that happens so suddenly.

You might not be able to get those papers.

These volunteer lawyers can help you redraft those types of papers.

They can help with dealing with those contractor fraud issues that Kathy mentioned.

Landlords finding the proof of home ownership.

That was a huge issue here after hurricane Katrina.

People often were living in the house, just passed down through generations and never really got clear who inherited it and all these laws said if there were five kids but only one was living there, all five kids owned it.

How do you deal with getting those -- that issue settled when the house is destroyed.

These kinds of lawyers can deal with those complicated issues.

The good thing, though, is they're not FEMA employees.

It's totally confidential services.

So disaster legal assistance is definitely someone to look up.

I do also want to mention the ABA's free legal answers.

That's basically a -- thank you for mentioning the hot lines are active from the onset and continue for a few months.

They're specific to that disaster for a certain amount of time.

But ABA's free legal answers is a really great portal that I wanted to mention as well.

That's all the time.

That's something you can always refer patrons to.

It's not in every state.

I think it's in about 40 or so states.

But you can look it up.

It's basically a an internal email system.

Not quite chatting.

You post messages.

And people who income qualify.

But it's slightly higher income than legal aid.

Can post a message for a volunteer lawyer to answer.

It's free pro Bono legal information and advice.

They will even review documents and things.

I know, it was particularly as Kathy mentioned, some of the disasters go on for years after.

So I'm still getting phone calls, hurricane Ida was over a year ago about hurricane Ida.

Even hurricane Laura, which was two years ago.

We still get questions about some of the ongoing issues.

That's a good resource for folks to turn to in general.

>> Great.

Thank you so much.

So that -- I hope you feel slightly more reassured that there are a lot of legal partners that can help you in this work.

Kathy has referenced this.

There's all the other players, not strictly legal that are also involved in this disaster response network.

One thing I've learned from this project, there's a lot of different players in this arena.

The library can -- is welcome to have a seat at that table and to figure out that landscape.

Kathy is going to talk a little bit about how to find those folks.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  Yeah.

It really is so many people involved in disaster response and recovery.

If you first getting involved in that and you want to know more, it can seem a little overwhelming at first.

I know when I first started working here in disaster recovery, my charge was to bring together legal and nonlegal responders to the disaster so that we could work together to improve the outcomes for our clients.

We had a feeling that many people, the recovery, the reason they weren't recovering was because they had a legal problem.

Or if they didn't have a legal problem, maybe they had a problem that another nonprofit organization or other organization could assist them with.

So I had to find out who everybody was.

And so probably you already know them.

You just don't know that they're part of the disaster recovery.

Because they're probably coming into your library.

First of all, you want to look up the local COAD.

Somebody put this in the chat, community organization active in disaster or VOAD, which is a voluntary organization active in disaster and introduce yourself to that organization.

You're like where can I find them?

You might be able to find them and probably will by calling your local emergency management.

Because there is somebody from your emergency management in your local community who knows who those people are and can hook you up.

Then you just begin to email people and introduce yourself, get on their mailing list, go to the meetings when they have them and then at those meetings, no matter what -- how you feel about the public speaking, raise your hand and talk about your library services.

I know one of the things that I did a lot was introduce myself and then ask them if I could do a presentation for them on legal services and legal aid to talk about what we do, but also to talk about the legal issues that they might see and that they would now know to refer them to us.

This is stuff you start toward what you see on the screen in blue sky time.

That's right now.

Right before this webinar, Sara and I were talking because right now in Florida we're looking in the ocean and we're seeing a storm where the spaghetti model says it might come to Florida or it might go to Louisiana or it might go to Texas.

So if you haven't started preparing now is the time that you do that.

So after listening to this, it gives you a good idea of some of the people that you can work with and how I hope that you'll start to developing that so that you can better serve your clients and so we can all work together to speed the recovery of the people that we serve.

>> Excellent.

Sara, what do you have to add to the disaster response network?

>> SARA PIC:  Not too much.

But just as I mentioned.

The local bar association again.

That's where you can connect with other lawyers and volunteer lawyers.

They'll have your local bar association will have some kind of connection with that young lawyers division.

I mentioned with the ABA.

So that's to get connected with the lawyers who specialize in disaster issues.

>> Great.

So there really is a wonderful network out there.

It's just a matter of finding it and then being courageous and saying I'd like to come to your next meeting.

Put me on the mailing list.

Okay.

Back to preparation one of my favorite topics.

Sara has some great thoughts on kind of how to motivate patrons, how to get that message to patrons and, again, it can be a really empowering message of -- 

there are some things you can do to feel better equipped because this can feel really overwhelming.

Sara, what are your ideas here?

>> SARA PIC:  Yeah.

You know, I got to give a round of applause, congratulations, you're already more prepared.

You all are here and you have already learned more.

You are already more equipped to help your patrons be prepared.

That's the whole point.

We're here to learn how to get our patrons and our communities more prepared for natural disasters.

So the main thing is that to be prepared even if you don't think you need to be, you know, we all wear seat belts in the car even though we don't usually get into too many accidents, hopefully most of us.

So you really have to put the preparation in as we've been talking about in the blue sky times.

When there's no disaster going on.

Thinking ahead of time.

You know, we have a hurricane season that I'm always preparing for.

But thinking about putting into your annual schedule.

Maybe when you do spring cleaning, you're thinking about getting things disaster prepared for your life.

The good thing is, there are so many resources, you do not need to reinvent the wheel here.

Ready.gov from FEMA has all of the kinds of checklists that you need to say okay, how can I get myself prepared and also think about the community as well.

And so again -- as was mentioned I think in the chat, the legal aid disaster resource center.

It's a new resource from legal services corporation.

There's a lot of resources out there to get you started on getting yourself prepared and then you can help your patrons get prepared.

One of those things you can do is, as we talked about, September, natural disaster preparedness month.

So this is a great time to have events, get people thinking about how to be prepared.

You can do exhibits, displays.

There's probably free swag you can get from someone once you get connected with those COADs and VOADs.

To get people thinking about this.

Even if you're in a place that doesn't experience disasters as frequently as we might here in Louisiana.

The main thing is it's okay to scare people a little bit, scare your patrons a little bit about disasters.

They probably should be a little bit scared.

As we just saw, there was terrible, terrible flooding earlier this summer in Missouri and Kentucky.

That they were just not prepared for.

It was not something they typically experienced.

A lot of just -- a lot of damage and people died.

So I think that those are good times when you can try to talk with your patrons about what are their plans of something unexpected like that happens.

Part of that is, yes, scaring them, but it's actually empowering them.

It's getting them to think, I have a plan now, I know what I'm going to do.

It helps to motivate them.

I know brooke is going to talk more about larger course that talks about as well.

>> Great.

Thank you so much.

We've given you a lot of information to chew on.

So I hope we haven't overwhelmed you.

I want to just kind of bring us in -- start to bring us in for a landing and think about what are some -- get Kathy and Sara to sort of tell us where is a good place to start.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  Go ahead.

>> How can library staff kind of begin to do this work of preparing their -- preparing to respond to their patrons in natural disasters?

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  Well, first of all, as I mentioned, go ahead and see what -- who is the local COAD or VOAD and get on their mailing list or email list or go to the next meeting or next call.

Start to build your disaster resource collection.

But as Sara said, don't go out there and reinvent the wheel and try to come up with a brochure on FEMA or Red Cross or the different work, different legal issues.

Go to your local legal aid or legal services or your bar association and see what they have.

Because they've already got information in brochure forms.

Most of the legal aid and legal services across the country on their websites, if they are -- 

especially in states where there are more disasters, they'll have stuff on their website that you can download.

A resource collection that you can begin to have available and ready for when the disaster strikes your area.

And it's interesting what brooke said about -- it may be a long time between disasters.

So you need -- which is a good thing.

But you need to be prepared for when it does happen.

I know this past year New Jersey was affected by hurricane Ida.

It had been more than ten years, I believe, since hurricane Sandy.

So a lot of the lawyers at the legal aid did not have experience with disaster recovery.

They were looking to the other states.

I think that keeping it up is the way to prevent that.

Even though you're like, well, we haven't had a disaster in five years.

Things change.

So you need to build that collection.

As you do with all of the information in the library all the time, you weed things out that you don't need and get the most current thing.

So making the connections is the most important thing.

Because you're going to be able -- you're going to know people that you can call and say, this person is asking me if the Salvation Army can give them a gas card.

You're going to know the person to call.

Somebody says, look, I need to get gas to get 50 miles down the road.

You'll be thinking I have a connection at Salvation Army or someplace else or the 211 and they can give me that gas card that we can send you there to get that gas card.

So those are important things.

Those are situations that can happen all during the year.

Not just when we have a catastrophic disaster.

That, to me is how to get started.

Be prepared.

Plan ahead.

But stay prepared.

Keep up your disaster resource collection.

>> How about you, thanks, Kathy.

How about you Sara, what are your -- 

>> SARA PIC:  As I mentioned, the planning and disaster preparation event for patrons.

I just want to point out there's a really great discussion in the chat going on about cert course.

I don't know that much about, I will admit.

It looks like there's -- these are maybe through FEMA and their preparedness courses that you could look at hosting as well.

Even if you -- so those seem to be more like focused on active disaster management issues.

But lawyers will be willing to talk about some of these issues.

As Kathy said, they could be any time.

That they could come in throughout the year and talk about some of the types of issues that people might face after a disaster.

>> Super.

Thank you.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  You know, brooke, I've been meaning to say this the whole time.

Every legal services, legal aid organization has to do outreach.

They would love to come to your library and do a program.

I guarantee you that.

So maybe they haven't called you yet, but call a library, you may -- if you don't know anyone, start with the executive director.

You'll eventually get to the right person or the executive director and say, hey, we would love for somebody at legal aid to come over and talk about disaster preparation.

They'll come.

>> Excellent.

Absolutely.

I love that.

Be the first one.

Pick up the phone.

Give them a call.

One thing, a great place to start is educating yourself.

That's what you're doing by being here.

If you're ready to take the deeper dive, we've got two courses and one more on the way.

You will see that you are all there.

Which is going to go in the chat in just a minute.

I'm going to try to give you just sort of a quick overview of what those are.

The short URL will take you to this page.

You'll be looking for the creating pathways course is that foundational course.

If legal reference is new to you, I would start there.

If you're ready to get into the disaster content, you're going to look for the navigating civil legal issues of natural disasters.

There are two courses ready for enrollment now.

The first one is called the disaster response network.

It's going to obviously -- it's going to it up on things we talked to today but take a much deeper dive.

You're going to be watching videos, reading short pieces.

Looking things up.

Figuring out who the partners are in your area.

Beginning to -- you'll respond to forum posts.

Discussion forums.

You'll begin to make a disaster recovery and response binder.

So a physical binder that is going to collect a lot of the handouts and different resources that we're going to point you to to begin to have that physical thing that you can take with you that, when the Internet is down and the power is down, you have this binder that that's your go-to.

You will know it well because you've looked through all the resources to compile it.

So that first course is going to look at the civil legal issues in the disarter, the library's role and cultivate the network and help patrons prepare.

The second course is trauma response and disaster assistance.

That's beginning to recognize the legal issues we talked about.

The key words that Sara was mentioning that you're listening for to think, huh, this sounds like a legal issue, I need to dig in a little more and get them to the right place.

And I do want to -- someone much earlier in the conversation mentioned a pretty -- you know, something that references how difficult this work is for the staff.

The staff is frequently experiencing the same natural disaster as the community that they're serving unless people have evacuated to your area.

I want to acknowledge that that is part of what makes us work really, really hard.

We hope we -- the courses touch on some of the issues, some of the resources to kind of begin to acknowledge the difficulty of the work.

But it is -- it is difficult.

We just need to acknowledge that and try to help staff themselves find resources as well.

I'm going to go back one more.

The third course is coming by the end of the year.

It's on the ongoing issues in mitigation that will -- that linger after the immediacy of the disaster.

So those are some of those contractor scams, housing issues, education.

Those can really tail for quite a long time.

I hope you will check out the courses.

Give them a look.

Encourage your colleagues to as well.

And I have a couple minutes left.

I'll ask Jennifer if anything you want to call out from the chat in terms of a question.

>> Jennifer: I just wanted to give an extra plug to how important preparation is to address those staff needs.

How great to have that conversation now, talk through scenarios, you have -- we know some of you have experienced with not so great scenarios with your library.

Hopefully, you can use this opportunity to really get into some of those deeper issues and the course definitely touches on a little bit more of that as well.

The only other question I think I saw -- feel free if folks have outstanding questions.

Certainly, you can get in touch with folks as well.

The other question was that somebody had learned that their first COAD meeting that the value of the 211 as a source of information and they wanted to confirm that is a national resource, correct?

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  Yes, it is.

>> Excellent.

>> Jennifer -- I saw someone else provided advice to someone around their own family.

We all have family members dealing with it.

Definitely a challenge there, too.

Yeah.

The courses are both listed on this page.

I'll put this link in here and on the event page.

So a reminder that our -- 

today's landing page, the event page is the spot where everything will be collected.

Thank you so much to all of you who brought additional links to the conversation.

We'll add those resources to that page as well.

I'm going to send you all an email later today once the recording is posted.

I'll also send you a certificate for attending today.

You don't need to request that.

And I'm also going to send you to a short survey as you leave and if you don't have time to respond now, the email will have that link to the survey.

But we really appreciate your feedback.

We'll share that with the presenters.

But it also helps us guide our ongoing programming.

We really appreciate the time you can take to complete that.

Thank you so much.

Especially to Kathy and Sara for all of the work that you've brought to this project and for soming today and thank you brooke, you're an excellent leader this work.

Thank you so much.

Everyone have a fantastic rest of your week and thanks to our captioner as well.

Bye bye.

>> KATHY GRUNEWALD:  Bye.