The Florida Bar News: Contact Call for volunteers — Florida’s legal aid providers respond to hurricane crisis
The Florida Bar News recently featured Bay Area Legal's Call for Volunteers Amid Hurricane Recovery Efforts:
Florida legal aid organizations were putting out a call Tuesday for more volunteers and scrambling to help Hurricane Helene victims as they watched a second deadly hurricane in less than two weeks draw a bead on the Gulf Coast.
Legal aid offices in Central and Southwest Florida were temporarily closed Tuesday as mandatory evacuations were being ordered ahead of Hurricane Milton’s projected landfall in the Tampa Bay region late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.
At Bay Area Legal Services, Inc., Disaster Relief Team managing attorney Jason Susalla said the group was experiencing “a significant influx of applicants for disaster-related legal assistance” on its statewide helpline.
Bay Area Legal Services coordinates with county emergency management groups and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make sure the helpline made known to survivors, Susalla said.
Though we are now experiencing a much higher applicant volume in the history of our service and helpline, we are managing to serve the survivors reaching out to us in an efficient manner. Currently our internal staff is handling this service, though we are open to the consideration to use volunteer attorneys.”
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