With hurricane season upon us, employers are justifiably concerned about the potential impact of a natural disaster on their business. A hurricane, natural disaster, or any other crisis in the workplace can bring a business to a screeching halt and devastate the lives of a business’s most valuable asset, its employees. To minimize the impact of a natural disaster, employers should have plans in place before disaster strikes, including, for example, a crisis management plan,…

Houston residents who suffered damage in Harvey and have not applied for FEMA or SBA assistance must do so by Thursday. The deadline to apply for disaster assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Small Business Administration (SBA) is Thursday, November 30th.  Residents who sustained damage during Harvey must apply by the deadline to be eligible for assistance. Federal assistance includes help for temporary housing, rental assistance and repair or replacement of damaged homes…

City of Houston Opens Pilot Neighborhood Restoration Center in Northeast Houston for Harvey Flood Survivors The City of Houston, along with local non-profit organization partners, opened the first Neighborhood Restoration Center at the Kashmere Multi-Service Center on Wednesday, November 15, 2017 as part of a pilot program aimed at connecting Houstonians affected by Harvey with recovery services. As part of this ongoing effort, a Neighborhood Restoration Center will be open at the Kashmere Multi-Service Center,  located at 4802 Lockwood …

Twelve years following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, when universities and colleges around the country embraced Tulane students displaced by the storm, Tulane has announced that it will offer a tuition-free semester for students from universities and colleges in Puerto Rico. The program, offered for the spring 2018 semester, is also open to students in other areas affected by recent storms in the USVI and St. Maarten/St. Martin. Tulane is requesting that students pay tuition…

The disaster wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria has also occasioned a flood of federal relief dollars into the areas impacted. Projects seeking federal funding must meet a variety of legal requirements, each of which warrant separate analysis. Here, we discuss a single federal construction contract requirement and how it has changed in light of these natural disasters: the requirement that federal contracts have written affirmative action programs. Over the course of the last…

Louisiana’s legal community has grown accustom to offering pro bono legal assistance to Louisiana storm victims. After addressing foremost concerns like shelter, food, water, and clothing, disaster victims are left to grapple with more intricate setbacks like insurance claims and FEMA appeals, landlord-tenant disputes, contractor fraud and contract disputes, custody and domestic disagreements, consumer issues, and lost legal documents, to name a few. The 2017 hurricane season has largely spared Louisiana relative to other U.S.…

On September 29, President Trump signed into law the Disaster Tax Relief and Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2017 (the “Act”). The Act provides temporary tax relief to the victims Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (the “Hurricanes”). The Act also provides victims of the Hurricanes with additional access to their retirement accounts and lessens the tax burdens related to these distributions. Below is a summary of the relief provided by the Act. This relief…