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The “Mother of All Rorschachs”: Katrina Recovery in New Orleans
... Analysis of death toll statistics shows that being elderly was the single most important factor in falling victim to the storm. The elderly, those over 65 years of age, accounted for 67% of the deaths but only represented 12% of the population in the 2000 Census [37,42] while those over 75 years of age accounted for 75% of the deaths [42]. The mean age of victims was 69 years of age. ...
... Analysis of death toll statistics shows that being elderly was the single most important factor in falling victim to the storm. The elderly, those over 65 years of age, accounted for 67% of the deaths but only represented 12% of the population in the 2000 Census [37,42] while those over 75 years of age accounted for 75% of the deaths [42]. The mean age of victims was 69 years of age. ...
Disasters are a prominent feature of our lives as they appear to become more devasting and more frequent. Though we understand the scientific nature of natural disasters there remains an element that maintains that natural disasters are under God’s control and sent for a reason. This study undertaken following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans seeks to understand how people used their faith prior to, during in, and after the storm. Subsequently, the study finds that different denominations exhibit different behaviors and practices prior to, during and after the storm. These practices are consistent with differences in social class and race: those with fewer resources relying more on their faith, believing in a more direct link to God, and maintaining that God sent the storm as part of His plan to re-direct their life.
... Today we see uneven patterns of redevelopment occurring in New Orleans, with the rebuilding process being driven by the profit interests of developers rather than the needs of those who wish to return (Laska 2007). Rebuilding affordable housing has not been given a high priority among policy and decision makers even though it is essential to the sustainability of the city (Olshansky 2006). ...
... [1] We draw on Shirly Laska's (2008) concept of "essential resilience," but seek to emphasize the traditional practices and not the ideal outcome of resilience capacity building. We use inherent resilience as a subset of the broader and more inclusive term community resilience as defined by Wilbanks (2008). ...
The persistence of communities along Louisiana's coast, despite centuries of natural and technological hazard events, suggests an enduring resilience. This paper employs a comparative historical analysis to examine "inherent resilience," i.e., practices that natural resource-dependent residents deploy to cope with disruptions and that are retained in their collective memory. The analysis classifies activities taken in advance of and following a series of oil spills within Wilbanks' four elements of community resilience: anticipation, reduced vulnerability, response, and recovery. Comparing local inherent resilience to formal government and corporate resilience enables the identification of strengths and weaknesses of these different categories of resilience. It also helps answer the questions: What forms of inherent resilience capacity existed prior to the formulation of formal contingency plans? How have communities drawn upon their own capabilities to survive without the infusion of massive external assistance? Have externally managed contingency planning procedures integrated or bypassed inherent resilience?
Not only is resiliency a term with a myriad of definitions microscopically specified by a wide variety of social and bio/physical scientists and practitioners, it is also incredibly complicated even when treated by individual academic/government/non-profit and business practitioners who are convinced that they have the perfect definition. By then linking the concepts of infrastructure and community to resiliency, not only does additional complexity emerge but also a powerful imperative to examine the basics necessary to achieve resiliency within these interrelated concepts. The lens of the applied academic observer situated at 'ground zero' for not only one but two major catastrophes within a micro minute span of less than five years (Hurricane Katrina and its 2005-2007 relatives and the British Petroleum oil well blow out of 2010, layered on pervasive localised sea level rise due to delta subsidence) is the 'data' analysed to support the arguments of this paper about what must be considered with regard to infrastructure and community to even hope to achieve a resilience state: essential resilience, exceptional recovery and serious appreciation for the need for a greater recovery scale.
For decades, disaster research and environmental sociology have proceeded more or less on parallel tracks, with little overlap between the two research communities. The work of William Freudenburg is an exception. This paper focuses on Freudenburg’s contributions in two areas: theorizing distinctions between the social dimensions and impacts of natural disasters and those associated with technological hazards; and conceptualizing disasters of all types as outcomes of longer-term historical, political, and economic processes operating at different scales.
At a time of increasing globalization and worldwide vulnerability, the study of disasters has become an important focus for anthropological research-one where the four fields of anthropology are synthesized to address the multidimensionality of the effects to a community's social structures and relationship to the environment. Using a variety of natural and technological disasters-including Mexican earthquakes, drought in the Andes and in Africa, the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Oakland firestorm, and the Bhopal gas disaster-the authors of this volume explore the potentials of disaster for ecological, political-economic, and cultural approaches to anthropology along with the perspectives of archaeology and history. They also discuss the connection between theory and practice and what anthropology can do for disaster management.