Hurricane Katrina Information for Federal Agencies and Courts
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is available to provide advice to Federal agencies and Courts dealing with the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina on Federal records in the Gulf coast region.
The Archivist of the United States has sent a letter concerning the delegation of authority to destroy contaminated records constituting a menace to health, life, or property under specific conditions to the heads of Federal agencies affected by Hurricane Katrina.
National Archives Offers Assistance to Gulf States: NARA press release, September, 19 2005
NARA's Preservation Programs office has several links to important information on their web site
- A form to aid agencies in the assessment of damaged records.Katrina Emergency Records Recovery/Disposal Form
- Information about vendors able to supply recovery and preservation services
The following are four points of contact for national and local records recovery and records management advice from NARA:
- For advice and assistance on records recovery issues, please contact Doris Hamburg, NARA's Director of Preservation Programs on 301-837-1785 or via email at doris.hamburg@nara.gov or Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, Chief, Document Conservation Laboratory on 301-837-2906 or marylynn.ritzenthaler@nara.gov
- For advice and assistance on records management issues, please contact, Paul Wester, NARA's Director of Modern Records Programs on 301-837-3120 or via email at paul.wester@nara.gov or the appraisal archivist assigned to your agency. Please see a list of agency staff assignments and points of contact.
- For advice and assistance on issues concerning classified national security information, please contact William J. Bosanko of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) on 202-219-5250 extension 238 or via email at william.bosanko@nara.gov.
- For local advice and assistance in Louisiana, please contact Preston Huff, Assistant Regional Administrator, NARA's Southwest Region, based in Fort Worth, TX, on 817-831-5627 or via email at preston.huff@nara.gov.
- For local advice and assistance in Alabama and Mississippi, please contact Leanne Townsend-Cerame, Assistant Regional Administrator, NARA's Southeast Region, based in Atlanta, GA, on 404-736-2825 or via email at leanne.townsend-cerame@nara.gov.
NARA's Preservation Programs and Modern Records Programs also have on-line resources located at http://www.archives.gov/preservation/disaster-response/ for records recovery information and http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/vital-records/recovery.html for records management information related to records recovery issues.
Please check these links frequently as we update information in response to the ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast region.
