As legal aid and volunteer lawyers in Texas begin providing legal advice to thousands of Texans with Hurricane Harvey property damage, similar work continues in New York—nearly five years after Superstorm Sandyhit the Eastern Seaboard.
Melissa Luckman, director of the Touro Law Center's Disaster Relief Clinic in Central Islip, New York, said the clinic has 125 active Superstorm Sandy cases and received 25 new referrals last week. That is nearly five years after Sandy hit New York and New Jersey on Oct. 29, 2012 in what is the second-costliest hurricane ever.
Luckman said the clinic started as a hotline for Sandy victims seeking help with insurance, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Small Business Administration issues. But it evolved into a full-service clinic serving Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island. Luckman said most of the remaining clients are dealing with contractor fraud or need assistance getting funding for repairs from the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program.
Luckman, a graduate of Touro Law Center who took the job as director of the clinic about eight months after Hurricane Sandy, said that up to a dozen law students volunteer at the clinic each semester. They still man a 24-hour hotline, she said. The clinic has provided assistance to more than 1,000 clients since 2012.
Luckman has some advice for the volunteer lawyers who are gearing up to help Texans with claims stemming from Hurricane Harvey, which hit the Texas coast on Aug. 25, causing property, damage and massive flooding across South Texas.
Lawyers, she said, need to tell people to take pictures of their house before they do any clean up. “Just photograph everything before they throw anything out,” she said, adding that photos go a long way toward proving damages.
She also said lawyers should tell storm victims to be cautious in taking repair loans from the SBA. She said some Sandy victims took out loans they clearly could not afford to repay, which led to financial difficulties.
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Brenda Sapino Jeffreys
Senior reporter Brenda Sapino Jeffreys covers the business of law in Texas. Contact her at [email protected] On Twitter: @BrendaSJeffreys