Hurricane Katrina Disaster Response and Recovery

Throughout the years, various presidential administrations have responded to the needs of American citizens in distress after the devastation caused by natural and technological disasters. This paper traces the history of natural disaster policy as it has developed, mostly in reaction to natural disasters or public outcry from a failure of government officials to address local, regional or national distress, in a series of three historical stages. Understanding the phases and principles guiding each stage in the evolution of disaster management is important so that policies are not reestablished that create similar situations as those that have occurred in the past. Specifically, attention is devoted to the historical development of current policy and federal responses during times of disaster, and current policy's implications on future disaster policy.

This is an unpublished essay that I circulated privately in September 2005, several weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the City of New Orleans.  Having lived in the Big Easy while in college and having made it and its culture and its people an important part of my life, I was aghast at calls by people unfamiliar with the city to allow for its demise.  This was before it became known to the country that the reason that the city was devastated was the failure of its levees to hold and protect the city and not because of many other factors.

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, driving hundreds of thousands of residents out of the city and causing upwards of $55 billion in damage. Between August 2005 and New Year's Day 2006, New Orleans lost over half its population because Katrina forced people out of their homes and businesses were relocated temporarily, if not permanently. This natural event played a crucial role in the development of the insurance industry with regards to how it reacted to these "black swan" events. Journalists and reporters were quick to criticize the response time of government organizations such as FEMA, but insurance companies were also to blame for the disastrous aftermath. The mathematical models used at the time failed to properly prepare companies for the payouts needed after the storm subsided, meaning hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents were left unsubsidized for the damage done and were forced to move out of the city altogether. This paper analyzes how models were used by the insurance industry prior to Hurricane Katrina, followed by an analysis on how those models changed to accommodate for future events that may cause similar damage. I also discuss the role of government in natural catastrophes and the regulation of insurance before vs. after Hurricane Katrina.

This Applied Research Project is an exploratory study seeking to establish a theoretical framework for long-term disaster recovery efforts. Through the use of qualitative interviews conducted with senior managers of national nonprofit agencies working on Hurricane Katrina recovery, this research first tests the feasibility of Jane Addams' social democratic theory and ethics for use as a theoretical framework for long-term disaster recovery. The research also explores the degree to which nonprofit organizations already implement elements of Addams' theory and ethics in their long-term disaster recovery programs. This is tested through the administration of a questionnaire with case managers working with Katrina survivors in Houston, Texas.

The findings of this research strongly support the use of Jane Addams' social democratic theory and ethics as a theoretical framework for long-term disaster recovery efforts. Not only do leaders of nonprofit organizations view the Addams framework as feasible, but case managers report that their organizations are already implementing the main tenets of Addams' theory and ethics in their daily provision of services to Katrina survivors. Therefore, this research suggests that the long-term disaster recovery community may immediately look to Addams' social democratic theory and ethics as a theoretical framework upon which to construct its efforts, both for Hurricane Katrina long-term recovery and for that of future disasters.

After World War II, members of a small black middle class in southern cities such as Dallas, Atlanta, and New Orleans settled in newly built suburban-style subdivisions of single-family homes. While scholars have examined the design process and political negotiations that led to the development of black middle-class planned subdivisions, very little is known about how and why residents formed communal bonds. This article seeks to understand how original residents in Pontchartrain Park, a subdivision located in New Orleans, Louisiana, created a sense of community in the early years of the neighborhood. The research specifically focuses on the process of community building among adults who spent the majority if not all of their childhood and adolescent years in Pontchartrain Park. Interview data show how residents relied on communal bonds to offset some of their early experiences with racial hostility. Former residents retain strong ties to the neighborhood by attending church services, visiting neighborhood friends and participating in neighborhood organizations. Longstanding communal bonds have also played a vital role in the neighborhood's post-Katrina recovery.

After a disaster the role of the incident commanders and other decision makers, must eventually must shift from assisting coordination of emergency search, rescue, and relief operations to positioning resources and preparing personnel for integrated recovery operations. (continued… download to read more)

Analysis by specialists (medical, government, security personnel, etc.) enhances situational awareness, reduces situational analysis uncertainties, boosts the capacity to act and react with what Howitt and Leonard describe as situational anticipation, and enables crisis mangers to more quickly recognize and respond to novelty in crisis situations. (continued… download to read more)

This is the first chapter of Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools (Routledge 2007).  It details the way that neoliberal educational restructuring was accomplished through the use of the natural disaster.  Specifically , it focuses on the roll out of charters, vouchers, no-bid contracting in New Orleans and the gulf coast, and the firing of teachers and dismantling of the teachers union.  The chapter illustrates how the disaster was used by the political right to accomplish a longstanding agenda.

Abstract
Background
A comprehensive review of the design principles and methodological approaches that have been used to make inferences from the research on disasters in children is needed.
Objective
To identify the methodological approaches used to study children’s reactions to three recent major disasters—the September 11, 2001, attacks; the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami; and Hurricane Katrina.
Methods
This review was guided by a systematic literature search.
Results
A total of 165 unduplicated empirical reports were generated by the search and examined for this review. This included 83 references on September 11, 29 on the 2004 Tsunami, and 53 on Hurricane Katrina.
Conclusions
A diversity of methods has been brought to bear in understanding children’s reactions to disasters. While cross-sectional studies predominate, pre-event data for some investigations emerged from archival data and data from studies examining non-disaster topics. The nature and extent of the influence of risk and protective variables beyond disaster exposure are not fully understood due, in part, to limitations in the study designs used in the extant research. Advancing an understanding of the roles of exposure and various individual, family, and social factors depends upon the extent to which measures and assessment techniques are valid and reliable, as well as on data sources and data collection designs. Comprehensive assessments that extend beyond questionnaires and checklists to include interviews and cognitive and biological measures to elucidate the negative and positive effects of disasters on children also may improve the knowledge base.

This text later appeared as Chapter 7 of the book The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism. It incorporates much of the material from the articles entitled "A Letter from New Orleans" and "Postscript to a Letter from New Orleans."

Konflikty zbrojne stanowi¹ce widmo dla bezpieczeñstwa pañstwa, dzisiaj nie s¹ postrzegane jako g³ówne zagro¿enie dla ³adu w pañstwie. Coraz wiêkszego znaczenia na-bieraj¹ zagro¿enia o charakterze niemilitarnym, które stanowi¹ nowe wyzwanie dla bezpieczeñstwa. Globalizacja przynios³a wiele dobrego, ale równie¿ wiele niebezpieczeñstw, które powinny na sta³e pojawiae siê w oewiadomooeci ka¿dego cz³owieka. Ta sama globalizacja, która u³atwia nam podró¿owanie, poszerza mo¿liwooeci prowadzenia miêdzynarodowego biznesu b¹dŸ sprzyja wymianie informacji, u³atwia równie¿ rozprzestrzenianie siê chorób, handel ludŸmi, ale tak¿e sprawia, ¿e procesy, które kiedyoe przebiega³y w znacznie wolniejszym tempie, dzisiaj zintensyfikowa³y siê, co nie w ka¿dym przypadku jest korzystne. Wspó³czesny cz³owiek wykorzystuj¹c mo¿liwooeci jakie przyniós³ mu rozwój nowych technologii, coraz intensywniej ingeruje w oewiat natury. Dokonuje siê eksperymentów, które kiedyoe nie mia³y racji bytu, wysy³a rakiety i statki kosmiczne w kosmos, ale przede wszystkim zanieczyszcza oerodowisko znacznie intensywniej ni¿ kilka lat wczeoeniej. W efekcie zniszczeniu ulega warstwa ozonowa chroni¹ca ziemiê przed promieniami s³onecznymi. Cz³owiek, zw³aszcza emituj¹c gazy cieplarniane przyczynia siê do zmian w klimacie 1 , topniej¹ lodowce, podnosi siê poziom wody w oceanach, zwiêkszy³a siê czêstotliwooeae i si³a, a tak¿e zakres obszarów wystêpowania ekstremalnych zjawisk pogodowych. Ocieplenie klimatu nie jest jednak równomierne. Czêoeae oewiata cierpi bardziej, ni¿ pozostali. W najtrudniejszej sytuacji znajduj¹ siê biedne pañstwa, które z jednej strony w najmniejszym stopniu przyczy-niaj¹ siê do zmian w klimacie, a które z drugiej strony nie dysponuj¹ oerodkami pozwa-laj¹cymi im za³agodziae efektów globalnego ocieplenia, s¹ to pañstwa które uzale¿nione s¹ w du¿ym stopniu od pomocy z zewn¹trz 2 . Jednym z groŸniejszych zjawisk, jakie s¹ efektem zmian w klimacie s¹ huragany. Pozostaje pytanie, dlaczego ich ilooeae i si³a za-le¿¹ od zmian w klimacie. By powsta³ huragan, jednym z niezbêdnych warunków jest wzrost temperatury wody w oceanach 3 , a zatem ocieplenie klimatu sprzyja ich krystalizowaniu siê. Dodatkowo wzrastaj¹cy poziom wody w oceanach, co jest efektem top-niej¹cych lodowców i wiecznej zmarzliny jedynie wzmaga ich si³ê. Zjawisko nie jest novum, jednak zauwa¿yae mo¿na, ¿e czêstotliwooeae i si³a wystêpuj¹cych huraganów wzros³y. Tym samym sta³y siê one nowym wyzwaniem dla bezpieczeñstwa pañstwa. 1 H. Welzer, Wojny klimatyczne, Warszawa 2010, s. 52-53. 2 Ibidem, s. 54-55. 3 TVN24, Zobacz jak rodzi siê huragan, http://www.tvn24.pl/pogoda,7/zobacz-jak-rodzi-sie-huragan,57414.html, 10.01.2014.

ABSTRACT Because governmental structures put in place to mitigate disaster risks and aid communities in the disaster recovery process have, at times, proven to be inadequate, reliance on other types of organizations is necessary for some communities to survive. Although there are a number of different actors that played a role in the reestablishment of communities within New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina took place, the Mary Queen of Vietnam (MQVN) Catholic Church is a prime example of how a community-based organization stepped in to address the needs of its community. This article examines how MQVN garnered social capital within its surrounding community to pursue successful community development in the absence of and opposition to governmental support and political resistance. This article will first review the government failure and decrease in civic trust that fostered a robust third-sector response in disaster recovery and redevelopment. Then, using social capital theory, the article supports the notion that civic distrust and confidence is derived from government and institutional performance, rather than increasing individualism or declining social trust. Finally, implications for federal disaster policy and third-sector disaster interventions are proposed.

While the catastrophe following Hurricane Katrina, the "war on terror" and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are usually conceived of separately, this essay demonstrates their profound interconnectedness, from the siphoning off of natural disaster preparation for purposes of anti-terrorism, to the militarization of post-disaster rescue, relief and security operations.

Was Hurricane Katrina a third world disaster in a first world country? Was it a natural disaster but a man-made catastrophe? Were the rights of the vulnerable, the poor, ethnic minorities, and women ignored? Hurricane Katrina momentarily brought questions of racism, race, and socioeconomic class in America to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness. This interdisciplinary course will discuss the history of the Mississippi Delta and how that past set up the conditions for the devastation wrought by Katrina. We will also examine the human rights issues raised by the response, rescue and recovery operations in Katrina's aftermath.

This article explores the ways in which Josh Neufeld’s documentary comic, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, which was published first online from 2007 to 2008 and then collected in book form in 2009, offers a radical visual commentary on the processes of dis- aster capitalism and tourism gentrification that have reshaped New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Whilst A.D.’s biblical ima- gery evokes the proto-corporate language of the ‘blank canvas’ in order to critique regimes of disaster capitalism, its vertical multi- scalar perspectives meanwhile resist the racism of media coverage of the event. Through colouring and other aesthetic choices, the comic also challenges the subsequent propagation of an ‘authentic image’ of New Orleans that promotes tourism gentrification. Where previous critics have emphasised the emotional appeal A.D.’s makes on its readers, I instead discuss the comic’s identification of the structural conditions that have violently impacted the city’s most marginalised inhabitants. Nevertheless, the article qualifies these contentions by acknowledging that A.D. also contributes to an ‘affect economy’ that has exacerbated the privatisation of previously public infrastructure and social services, often to the detriment of pre-Katrina residents simply trying to return to their city.

Alongside the ruins of asymmetrical warfare, we are now living in an era of unimaginable natural destruction. The irreversible effects of climate change, hurricanes, large-scale earthquakes and tsunamis haunt our social psyche and capture our imagination. These volatile occurrences are intensified as governments are unable to sufficiently handle the physical and emotional aftershocks of such catastrophes. In turn, the media transform the state’s failure into a spectacle. Only after the media extravaganza settles down and the aid workers leave, do clean-up and reconstruction begin. Then, artists, designers and social scientists start to employ visual and spatial strategies to make sense of what really happened. With the help of local and international art organizations, artists tackle the human condition and our innermost collective fears to rethink life in the wake of natural disasters. In this article, I critically identify some of the artistic and spatial practices and their manifestations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
>> CLICK LINK TO ACCESS THE ARTICLE.

There is a perceived lack of longitudinal studies of urban recovery after disaster in general,  and of research that integrates urban studies with disaster or vulnerability research and related models of disaster recovery in particular. Integration of these positions is necessary to holistically understand the ongoing and fragmentary recovery of New Orleans 5 years after Katrina.

The author's dissertation at the Bauhaus University Weimar deals with long-term recovery of New Orleans after Katrina and is based on a theoretical approach that integrates spatial, institutional, and social aspects of urban disaster recovery via the socio-spatial perspective of urban sociology (Gottdiener and Hutchison 2006). This permits analyzing the process of federal, state, and local interventions in urban disaster recovery (e.g. Road Home program, Lot Next Door program) in relation to socio-spatial urban vulnerabilities of impacted populations (e.g. evacuees who could or couldn't return). Within this approach, the author collected empirical data through case study based quantitative questionnaire surveys (with members of an impacted population in the Lower Ninth Ward who have or haven't returned) and qualitative interviews with key individuals (in federal, state, and local institutions and non-profit organizations) during two field research visits in 2007 and 2009.

Sociologically oriented disaster research tends to focus on the community level. However, if we identify communities or neighborhoods as research units, then these only represent subsystems in regard to the city as system within urban studies. How can we develop integrated research frameworks, and what are their advantages or limitations? What can resulting research and data contribute to future urban disaster mitigation and planning? The author intends to present his theoretical and methodological approach, core findings, and normative outlook in the context of “Urban Theory, Theoretical and Conceptual Issues in Urban Affairs”.

In 2005, the Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston (SKRH) project formed in response to the largest sudden diaspora in United States history, which drove residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama into the Houston area. Within the SKRH framework, survivor-narrators and survivor-interviewers engaged as experts in collective learning and co-creation of new cultural knowledge by participating in social therapeutic communities (TCs) through survivor-to-survivor (S2S) unstructured interviews. Recorded, coded, and archived, these stories became a means to create new community and cultural understanding during recovery helping victims cope and heal through social connection. In this essay, I engage a qualitative culture-centered approach utilizing narrative inquiry of the SKRH interviews. I investigate what we, as individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities, grassroots organizations, non-profits, NGO’s, corporations, government agencies, healthcare providers, social workers, therapists, et al., can understand about the unique culture of survivor community created by and for victims of natural disasters. In addition, I examine the magnitude of the survivors’ losses, how to be culturally sensitive to their comprehensive needs, how to actively and culturally listen to shared narratives, how to engage in best practices for post-crisis recovery communication, and how to help survivors regain a sense of community and support during rebound, recovery, and rebuilding cycles.Communication, Jack J. Valenti School o

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it is plain to see that there was inadequate planning, preparation and mitigation by the federal government to handle such extreme circumstances as the “storm of the century”.  The men and women on Capitol Hill who were placed in charge of assessing the ultimate dangers that a hurricane could, and ultimately did, bring upon the states involved were woefully and inadequately prepared to successfully deal with such a storm and resultant disaster.  Not only was the agency, who had been tasked with responding to emergency situations ill-equipped and undermanaged, but it was found that those in charge were inadequately trained to respond to anything as devastating as Hurricane Katrina (A failure of initiative, 2006).

Purpose
– Following a natural disaster the cleanup process usually takes place before reconstruction or rebuild can actually be implemented. Effectiveness of cleanup process determines the possible level of speed for implementing rebuild and reconstruction process. This paper aims to focus on providing guidelines to help plan for future natural disaster management.

Design/methodology/approach
– This study analyses a cleanup process after Hurricane Katrina in terms of governing policy, implementing process, problems associated with process, priorities for cleanup, and politics.

Findings
– The study finds policies governing the cleanup process, problems associated with the cleanup process, priorities areas in the cleanup work and politics of the disasters.

Research limitations/implications
– The research focuses only on three states where Hurricane Katrina hit, namely Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Practical implications
– This paper explains policies governing the cleanup, the process, the prioritized work areas, associated problems, and politics of disasters. The analyses of the study provide lessons which can be learned. They also provide grounds on which guidelines for effectively managing the cleanup process for future similar events can be generated and set.

Originality/value
– This paper provides guidelines on the process and politics of cleanup, which can be applied to future comprehensive plans for cleanup process.

While the United States has been willing to normalize relations with our previous enemies, including Vietnam, there are powerful factions in the United States that react whenever talk of relaxing current policies comes to the fore. Their rhetoric helps to hold US-Cuban relations hostage to history. What mutually beneficial initiatives may be out of reach because of this hard line position? While there are many, I would like to focus on the discourse surrounding one issue in particular that illustrates how normalized relations and the benefits of subsequent intellectual and cultural exchanges could actually save lives.

Volunteers and volunteer resource managers play critical roles in the response following a natural disaster. Episodic volunteerism, a key aspect of volunteerism today, has become increasingly important in the disaster recovery process. This article examines episodic volunteerism in the context of the recovery from Hurricane Katrina with a focus on events in the small Mississippi Gulf Coast town of Pass Christian. Drawing on a case study approach using field work, interviews, and secondary resources to collect data, the authors examine the roles of volunteer resource managers in coordinating the volunteer response. Along with a discussion of the nature of episodic volunteerism in Pass Christian, the authors suggest new strategies for volunteer resource managers in engaging episodic volunteers.

Kammerbauer, M. (2013): This contribution deals with contradictions between recovery planning and urban masterplanning in the case of the urban mega-disaster in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. While recovery planning is intended to enable a 'return to normal', urban master land use planning is aimed at an alteration or transformation of a given situation. In the case of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the Citywide Recovery Plan had to adapt to the aftermath of disaster, while the 2030 Masterplan advocates growth and improvement. Which contradictions emerge, an what role do existing conditions as well as the scale of disaster play for this process? Here, the conjunction of particular spatial, institutional and social aspects of the city and the disaster seems critical.

Through a critical discourse analysis of news media after the US Gulf Coast hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake disasters, we draw from Soss et al.'s (2011) ideas about US poverty governance – neolib-eral paternalism – to identify how a similar phenomenon of 'neoliberal disaster governance' (NDG) operates in these contexts. NDG is a set of discourses, policies, and practices, we argue, which endeavors to control disaster survivors in order to further the ends of neoliberal capitalism. Specifically, we find several key story lines that legitimate and perpetuate NDG, namely disaster capitalism, securitization and militarization of disaster settings, discourses of racial cleansing, and displacement.

... Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools – By Kenneth J. Saltman. ElizabethVillarreal. Article first published online: 14 DEC 2009. ... Get PDF (36K). More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: Elizabeth Villarreal. ...

In 2005, the Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston (SKRH) project formed in response to the largest sudden diaspora in United States history, which drove residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama into the Houston area. Within the SKRH framework, survivor-narrators and survivor-interviewers engaged as experts in collective learning and co-creation of new cultural knowledge by participating in social therapeutic communities (TCs) through survivor-to-survivor (S2S) unstructured interviews. Recorded, coded, and archived, these stories became a means to create new community and cultural understanding during recovery helping victims cope and heal through social connection. In this essay, I engage a qualitative culture-centered approach utilizing narrative inquiry of the SKRH interviews. I investigate what we, as individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities, grassroots organizations, non-profits, NGO’s, corporations, government agencies, healthcare providers, social workers, therapists, et al., can understand about the unique culture of survivor community created by and for victims of natural disasters. In addition, I examine the magnitude of the survivors’ losses, how to be culturally sensitive to their comprehensive needs, how to actively and culturally listen to shared narratives, how to engage in best practices for post-crisis recovery communication, and how to help survivors regain a sense of community and support during rebound, recovery, and rebuilding cycles.

“FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications...Many may be surprised to learn that, guess what, FEMA doesn't own fire trucks. We don't own ambulances. We don't own search and rescue equipment. The people of FEMA are being tired of being beat up, and they don't deserve it.”
--Federal Emergency Management Agencies (FEMA) Director Michael D. Brown during a congressional hearing in January 2006

This study comparatively analyzes the Federal Emergency Management Agency's crisis public relations communication leading up to and during hurricanes Katrina and Gustav to determine what, if any, changes FEMA made to its communication strategy. Employing framing analysis, the authors discovered that, aside from an increase of more than double the number of words devoted to its Gustav crisis communication, the action statements within FEMA’s crisis rhetoric had significantly decreased since that before and during Katrina.