Rachel I. Weiss ^1*, Karen L. McKie ², Richard A. Goodman ¹

¹ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
² DeKalb County Office of the Solicitor-General

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rweiss{at}cdc.gov.

	Abstract

Law influenced every aspect of the public health response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, from evacuation orders, to waivers of medical licensing requirements, to the clean-up of public health threats on private property. We used public health surveillance of news reports to identify and characterize legal issues arising during the disaster response in 5 Gulf Coast states. Data collected from news reports of the events in real time were followed-up by interviews with selected state legal and emergency management officials. Our analysis indicates the value of surveillance during and after emergency responses in identifying public health-related legal issues and helps to inform the strengthening of legal preparedness frameworks for future disasters.

Key Words: Government, Health Law