Fears of lawsuits held back Sandy help

The following excerpt is from a recent article featured in Crain's New York, where Architects say state's tough tort laws are barrier to free advice after a disaster hits.

"We had 400 people turn out, all ready to go, but in the end nobody here wanted to expose them to what could have been considerable litigation—thousands, and even sometimes millions of dollars," said Lance Jay Brown, co-chair of AIA New York City's Design for Risk and Reconstruction Committee, which put out the call to arms.

For the complete article, click here.

DfRR committee members complete Hurriplan training.

Hurriplan: Resilient Building Design for Coastal Communities is a two-day training course for planners, design professionals, state and local officials, and property owners.  This recent session, held at Pratt Institute - Manhattan Campus, was conducted through The National Disaster Preparedness Training Program (NDTPC) and sponsored by FEMA.  In attendance were DfRR committee members, Illya Azaroff (co-chair), Jack Suben, Deborah Gans, Cynthia Barton, and Dean Sakamoto.