As the colossal scale of damage wrought by Hurricane Helene becomes clear, legal aid groups are steeling themselves for yearslong battles to help people rebuild their lives and homes.

“It’s going to be a massive effort,” said Alicia Edwards, who directs the Disaster Relief Project for Legal Aid of North Carolina, which serves low-income clients.

They’re mobilizing to help people navigate a maze of post-disaster bureaucracy — fights with landlords, insurers, contractors and even federal relief agencies themselves.

But first, legal groups in the area need to account for their own people.

Several of Legal Aid’s offices sustained storm damage, and staff members were working “with minimal resources,” she said. As of Tuesday, the group had still not heard from all of its staff members.

Despite the challenges, her team’s disaster response was up and running. The group of five lawyers and seven paralegals was coordinating with the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division’s Disaster Legal Services unit.

Amanda Brown, a New Orleans lawyer who volunteers as program director, said that when she joined the legal services group in 2016, it “stood up” seven or eight projects a year. Now that number has more than doubled as storms become more frequent and more severe.