Like every American state, Louisianna and Mississippi had plenty on unmarried parents and divorced couples with children, indeed, probably more than average.
Most of those families had elaborate protocols set forth by courts regarding custody and visitation. Many of those parents don’t communicate well with each other in the best of times.
Now, it is hard enough for families that we living together to regroup. Parents have been separated from children. People of evacuated by any available means.
Movie buffs may have watched “War of the Worlds” this summer. The old story was given a new twist by throwing a divorce into the mix. Very different and divorced parents shared responsiblity for protecting their two children during a disaster.
Now that is being replayed all across the Southern United States, tens of thousands of times.
Strictly speaking, people are violating divorce decrees all over the place this week, although since the violations are involuntary, the violators will be unlikely to be subject to contempt citations.
But, typically, those decrees and the child support decrees that accompanying them, cannot be modified, even by mutual consent, without court order. This is a good rule in ordinary times. It may be a major problem now. Almost everyone in New Orleans and South of Jackson in Mississippi has vastly changed circumstances, and the relevant courts are not in session, many files have been lost, lawyers and guardians ad litem are scattered, jobs have been lost, people have relocated for the foreseeable future (it will take three months to pump NO dry they said today), and in generally, the formalities will be a horrible mess.
I can’t even begin to imagine how this particular part of the Hurricane mess will be handled.