Abstract
What have the events associated with Hurricane Katrina revealed about our understanding of disasters and what do they continue to reveal? The Katrina Bookshelf Series—University of Texas Press—addresses these questions with several volumes that deepen our perspectives on hazards and disasters by critically examining Katrina and revealing often unnoticed or unappreciated aspects. The final installment of this series by Kai Erikson and Lori Peek provides a fitting end.
The book is divided into three parts: “A Hurricane Known as Katrina;” “Locating Katrina;” and “Katrina as Human Experiences.” As readers have come to expect from these authors, the prose is poignant and thought-provoking. I have included several quotes in my review to provide a flavor of their Katrina story-telling.
Katrina has stories to tell and the authors draw on this event to provide a “lens through which other investigators can get a useful perspective … to be better prepared for that inevitable event—the next time” (xi). The authors acknowledge the destruction and disastrous impacts across the Mississippi Gulf Coast and other Louisiana communities, but locate this ‘telling’ in New Orleans, where the disaster was viewed by most residents “…as an act of human negligence, if not outright malice” (11).
Chapter 1, “Along the Shores of the Gulf,” sets the storm context, describing physical damages, scope of impacts, and sequence of events. The authors set their focus on New Orleans, stating, “Residents of the coast took it for granted that they had been victims of a natural event surging from a distant place, while the people of New Orleans shared a sense that they had been victims of stunning failures in human engineering and, far more to the point, in human caring” (10, original emphasis). This is consistent with observations that hazard events that are perceived to be human-caused and thus, preventable, have greater adverse sociocultural and psychosocial impacts than hazard events that are perceived to be “natural” and unpreventable.
Erikson and Peek do not delve into formal definitions of disaster—natural or otherwise—and the term ‘disaster’ subtly takes on different connotations throughout the book, which may be disconcerting to some readers. However, they note three anthropogenic factors that contributed to the disaster in New Orleans: social conditions such as poverty, racism, inequality, and vulnerability; location decisions (e.g. wetlands, limited land above sea level); and the built infrastructure (e.g. the levee system, the Industrial Canal). The term “natural disaster” is clearly inadequate to apply to the New Orleans Katrina experience.
Chapter 2, “On the Streets of New Orleans,” begins by noting that flooding from Lake Pontchartrain to the north was already underway before Katrina made landfall. However, it was the Industrial Canal and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) that delivered Katrina's storm surge into the city, bursting the levee system and demolishing the Lower Ninth Ward. They write, “… the flooding of New Orleans owed most of its size and most of its lethal force to human-built structures within the city itself” (15). The social geography of New Orleans meant that the vast majority of victims and survivors of Katrina's flood were African Americans living in poverty. This social geography prevented many from being able to evacuate—lacking transportation means and financial resources to do so. Almost 100,000 residents were trapped by floodwaters, many on rooftops of homes or sheltering at the Superdome or Convention Center.
The authors briefly describe initial federal failures “… to appreciate and then anticipate the dangers posed by the city's inadequate system, and … to come up with ways to help ill-equipped residents safely evacuate from the city” (18). As is typically the case in the immediate aftermath of a hazard event, local residents improvised to assist and save each other. The U.S. Coast Guard and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries were some of the first government agencies that initiated rescue efforts. The latter was joined by a volunteer “Cajun Navy” before it was shut down by local and federal authorities, who feared volunteers were intent on looting instead of rescuing those stranded on rooftops.
This misperception of looting was fueled by distorted media coverage of the disaster in New Orleans. In my opinion, “The Media Finds a Focus,” “A Pause to Reconsider,” “Understanding the Costs,” and “The Cavalry Arrives” are the most compelling sections of the book. The authors contend that media attention shifted from denial and a lack of a frame for understanding the unfolding flooding on day one, to astonishment at the lack of federal response and support on day two, and from day three forward, to the “chaos” on the streets and in places of refuge, particularly the Superdome and Convention Center. From the media's depiction, black people were looting, but white people engaged in the same behavior were “acquiring the means of subsistence” (23). Reports and accounts of murders, rapes, and anarchy at the Superdome, Convention Center, and elsewhere in the city filled media accounts, influencing decision-makers and public opinion.
Erikson and Peek write, “Citizens of the city of New Orleans had been accused by then of a remarkable array of crimes, misdemeanors, and other evils: looting, grand larceny, murder, child rape, sodomy, insurrection, treason, and even, in one sad report, cannibalism.” Yet, “There was good news on the way, even if it was a long time in coming: virtually none of those wild and malicious reports turned out to be true” (27 reviewer's emphasis). “Three weeks after Katrina … [began] a time of reconsideration, reflection, and even repentance” (27). The authors present media titles such as “In Katrina's Wake, Inaccurate Rumors Sullied Victims,” “Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy,” and “Fear Exceeded Crime's Reality in New Orleans” to illustrate this reflection. The authors present credible statements from officials such as Col. Jacques Thibodeaux of the Louisiana National Guard and Chief of Police Eddie Compass that further counter the media's initial narrative. But by the time of this reckoning, sociocultural and psychosocial damages had been exacerbated.
Poor journalism and distorted media coverage had multiple adverse ramifications as they fed into a broader cultural psyche about race—particularly that poor, black people are dangerous. An immediate effect was a suspension of humanitarian aid and a focus on restoring “order” and protecting private property. The authors state, “The suspension of aid led to delays in the provision of medical care, the restoration of critical infrastructure, and the delivery of essential water and food, sanitary supplies, and life-sustaining medications of many kinds” (32). Military assistance was delayed and when troops did arrive, having been misinformed by the media, they entered in combat mode rather than offering humanitarian assistance. “But after a short while it became obvious that there were no armed insurgents lurking in the shadows or snipers hidden in dark upper stories. … Troops geared for outright combat came to recognize that they were encountering a scene of human confusion and pain rather than one of fierce hostility. … They were drawing on a perspective shaped by actual experience rather than one shaped by the panic of officials and others” (37).
The authors acknowledge that issues of racism subtly, and not so subtly, permeated public perceptions and media reporting. But they also encourage the reader to reflect on, “… what about us … Why did so many people living in this country of ours find it so easy to believe what we were hearing from the press during those early reports from the field” (44)? What does this Katrina episode tell us about our society and ourselves? In my view, this recounting of the Katrina story prompts a more critical examination of our current society, which has become increasingly polarized—facilitated in part by a decline in professional journalism accompanied by a rise in social media and partisan depictions of events.
In Part II, “Locating Katrina,” the authors deconstruct Fritz’s 1961 definition of disasters as an “event located in time and space” to reveal what is often hidden by such an approach. Classic story-telling, which frames how we think about disasters, has a beginning, a middle, and an end—usually “The End.” This is convenient for comparing events in terms of human casualties, destroyed and damaged homes and buildings, economic costs, and the like. Indeed, for the New Orleans Katrina story, we can establish a beginning (August 29, 2005), a middle (human impacts and responses), and an end (recovery and a new normal). But is that the entire story? Is there more to learn and consider?
Erikson and Peek argue that the story of Katrina in New Orleans cannot be accurately told without examining the history of the city—from its founding in the 1700s onward. Conditions for disaster exist prior to a “triggering” hazard event and Chapter 3, “Time,” describes some of the human impacts on the landscape that contributed to the disaster. This included the loss of wetlands due to development—cypress swamps offered a natural buffer from hurricane tidal surges—and construction the Industrial Canal and MRGO, which provided tidal surge funnels into the city. I anticipated that this section would include a social history describing conditions of poverty, racial inequality, and political disenfranchisement that were at the heart of the New Orleans Katrina disaster. Although the authors include some of this social background in Chapters 5 and 6; a more concise description could have easily fit into this section.
The classic view of an event's time also misses the fact that for some, the disaster is not over and may never end. The authors note that official death counts do not include suicides committed after Katrina, but that were related to its aftermath. They ask the reader to consider when does the counting of casualties stop? The authors cite a documented increase in mental health problems years after the hurricane and flooding passed. How do these cases enter into calculating the equation of time and ending?
In particular, Erikson and Peek take issue with the concept of “post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD), which they consider to be short-sighted and not reflective of the everyday reality of many survivors. “What that terminology is suggesting … is that a person's current discomfort is a response, not to things that took place in the present, but to some lingering trace of something that took place in the past. This terminology does not take into account the current distress of a New Orleans resident as a reaction to the loss of faith in the larger social order, or to the wrenching disruptions of everyday life in a land trying to recover from a disaster, or to an ever-deeper fall into poverty, despair, hopelessness, or exile” (59). Moreover, “If someone suffers from a traumatic reaction two or three years after a disaster is reckoned to be over, the only logical deduction is that the original calculation was inaccurate. The disaster is not over. It is ongoing, and the present symptoms are clear evidence of that fact” (59).
The notion that a disaster may not be over for some survivors resonates with my research experiences in Cordova, Alaska after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Lingering ecosystem damages, the collapse of the herring fishery, and a belief held by many survivors that the ecosystem would not recover in their lifetime led me to conclude that for some, the disaster would not end until they died. The authors’ reframing of PTSD prompts further self-reflection. For example, results from survey data collected 20 years after the Exxon Valdez grounded, revealed that about 10 percent of commercial fishermen and Alaska Natives were in the “severe” clinical category on the Impact of Event Scale—a proxy for PTSD (Gill, Ritchie and Picou 2016). This section on Katrina gives weight to a perspective that it was not just the oil spill itself, but a series of events that followed that continued to fuel adverse psychosocial stress. I suspect that other disaster scholars will have similar observations that resonate with the authors’ reframing of PTSD and deconstruction of time.
In Chapter 4, “Space,” the authors offer two ways to spatially locate New Orleans: first as a physical location with official boundaries—a place on a map and second, as a living organism comprised of individual persons or cells. The former is relatively straightforward and recovery can be measured by restored critical infrastructure, buildings, housing, and other investments. The latter refers to residents of the city, many of whom were forced to evacuate to distant cities and places and then actively discouraged from returning.
Although they avoid the term, “disaster capitalism,” the authors document a systematic displacement of poor black citizens from the city. Remedial actions to assist African Americans and the poor did not materialize, as local, state, and federal government actions and policies were instilled to make it difficult for low-income residents to return. This included demolition of major public housing buildings that were replaced with mixed-income housing. Other barriers included the privatization of schools and shuttering of Charity Hospital and its replacement with a new medical center. “The result of these various official actions is clear. Evacuees who thought they were being transported out of immediate danger and onto safer ground for a short period of time after Katrina were actually being offered one-way tickets out of town. … The evacuation had become a Black diaspora” (67). The authors estimate that up to 45,000 New Orleans residents were permanently displaced by Katrina and these “cells” are spatially scattered throughout the nation.
From my perspective, this deconstruction of time and space challenges traditional approaches to disasters, particularly theories fixated on the emergency management cycle of preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Who is responsible for preparedness? For response? When does a disaster end? Who defines recovery and restoration? What happens when recovery remains elusive? How should the most vulnerable be treated in emergency management phases? How does emergency management theory incorporate the social production of disasters? In the face of increasing global inequality and social vulnerability, anthropogenic climate change, the rise of global pandemics, and other existential risks, emergency management, while important, is not enough. Emergency management increasingly seems to serve as a bandage when major surgery may be more appropriate. The field of hazards and disasters needs new theoretical thinking to break beyond this mold.
The final part of the book, “Katrina as Human Experience (Before, During, and After),” frames those residents who were at first unable to evacuate and then forced into exile as having “experienced three different concussions—blows to the mind and spirit” (71). The first refers to preexisting chronic conditions of poverty, racial segregation and discrimination, and political disenfranchisement. The second concussion was the harrowing and terrifying experiences of those enduring the storm and subsequent flooding. Feelings of abandonment and rejection by public officials and fellow citizens represented a third blow to mind and spirit.
The authors describe some of the vulnerabilities of everyday experiences of living in poverty in Chapter 5, “Before: Seeking out the Most Vulnerable.” They note that the poor oftentimes suffer the most during a disaster event, which often deepens inequalities and contributes to “chronic traumatization.” “These accumulations of disadvantage are something akin to slow-motion disasters” (75). The social history and conditions of poverty, racism, and inequality represent the first “concussion” that was part of everyday life for the subjects of this story.
Vulnerability was allowed to exist within the framework of emergency management as the authors reveal in their critique the traditional framing of family. They argue that the nuclear family as the “standard human arrangement” offers a distorted lens from which to view, and ultimately, judge others. Such judgements feed into the national psyche, particularly when applied to those in extended family groups that are often comprised of poor, people of color, and single mothers. The emphasis on the nuclear family arrangement meant that, “…both federal and state bureaucracies, with their rules and regulations, took it quite for granted that the badly damaged persons they were supposed to take care of lived in nuclear family units” (78). Conversely, anthropological research on what “family” means counters the primacy of the nuclear family arrangement. Indeed, social support provided by an extended family is essential for survival and staying out of absolute poverty. Unfortunately, as the authors note, “The extended family structure that turns out to be such an essential source of support in everyday life for the poor, people of color, and the otherwise disadvantaged can become a terrible handicap in a storm like Katrina, not only during its thunderous appearance on land, but just before it strikes and long after it has retreated” (79). “Officials at the federal, state, and even city level had made no provisions at all for evacuation by plane or bus or any other form of transportation that could accommodate larger groups” (81).
Chapter 6, “During: Being Battered by the Storm,” details the second “concussion” experienced by survivors. The authors offer thick descriptions of people's experiences with Katrina as flood waters inundated the city and critical infrastructure and services ceased to operate. Again, racial inequality is a prominent feature of this telling of the Katrina story. “When Katrina swept across the city, however, that feature of the local culture—the outright neglect of Blackness for the benefit of Whiteness—was painfully obvious, not only across the country but across the world” (91).
Here, the authors pick up the thread of trauma introduced in Chapter 3, examining ambiguous meanings of the term from various disciplinary perspectives. They maintain that, in the social sciences, trauma is best understood as referring “… to the injury rather than its cause” (92, original emphasis). Although a cause may be a relatively sudden “blow,” “Traumatic wounds can also result … from the accumulation over time of less dramatic assaults on the self—repeated slaps of fate can add up to a deep and lasting injury” (92). Such conditions create a “traumatic worldview” in which “… the continuous pounding of traumatic happenings drives one into an entirely different frame of mind, a new way of conceptualizing reality… a feeling that the world, and particularly its human element, is unreliable, unsteady, and dangerous and must be eyed warily” (93). Erikson and Peek urge us to listen and learn from such survivors “…because persons who have had traumatic experiences view reality in a way that human cultures tend to shield us from” (93).
The final chapter, “After: Pains of Displacement,” describes how evacuations became permanent for many, creating a Katrina diaspora. Abrupt, with no plan, no destination in mind, and families split apart, the displaced residents of New Orleans experienced a third concussion. Host places were welcoming at first, but this welcome wore thin as evacuees were unable to return to New Orleans and instead, remained in host communities. Moreover, “Those caught up in the mass displacement that followed Katrina either knew or soon learned that they were not regarded as worthy neighbors by those with whom they had once shared a city, and they wondered if they were even regarded as fully human by these fellow residents. They were not wanted in the only place where they felt at home and, for many, the only place they had ever called home” (100).
The massive evacuation and displacement also highlighted a disconnect between FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and the people they were supposedly serving. This included lack of cultural understanding, inadequate temporary shelters for extended families, and insensitivity towards maintaining family structures during the evacuation. Indeed, many displaced residents struggled to recover from the recovery and some continue to do so. “The disaster upended countless lives, and it still rages as an inner storm with no end for many who escaped the winds and waters but have not escaped the traumatic injuries that ensued” (103).
In their Postlude, Erikson and Peek offer three explanations for long-term studies of disasters such as Katrina. First is the need to understand the precursors to and social history behind traumatic outcomes of disasters. Second, a better-informed understanding of disasters improves the ability of decision-makers to implement “a just and reasoned restoration.” Finally, although often difficult to conduct and obtuse in reporting findings, longitudinal research on human traumas is needed to better prepare society for future events.
The authors note that Covid-19 was such an event and they point out patterns that were similar to outcomes of Katrina. In Louisiana, for example, the Covid-19 death rate among African Americans was disproportionately high compared to Whites. This pattern held in other states for Black Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos as “… the pandemic yet again stripped bare the racial divide in this nation” (107). This divide has not disappeared and is not the only divide that contributes to our vulnerability. As we face future calamities, knowledge garnered from events like Katrina and Covid-19 can be applied to improve our preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Erikson and Peek provide an enlightening perspective on hazards and disasters that needs to be taken into account. Only time will tell the extent to which such lessons have been learned and applied.
The Continuing Storm: Learning from Katrina should have broad appeal and utility. It is certainly appropriate as a reader for undergraduate courses on hazards and disasters, as well as courses on stratification, inequality, and social problems. The section on the media is strong enough to warrant consideration for inclusion in courses related to media studies. The book would also provide interesting discussion points for graduate courses on hazards and disasters; not only from an historical perspective, but its advancement of theorizing through the deconstruction of the time and space dimensions of traditional conceptualizations of disasters. Many of the social conditions, such as extended families lacking resources to evacuate, still exist and it is not apparent that responders and response policies are better prepared for the next time. Thus, the book will particularly appeal to disaster scholars and practitioners who are willing to rethink the traditional disaster management model and advance new ways of preparing for and dealing with the inevitable coming storms.
