Creating Katrina, Rebuilding Resilience

Lessons from New Orleans on Vulnerability and Resiliency

Michael J. Zakour, Nancy Mock, Paul Kadetz

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780128095577
• eBook ISBN: 9780128095621
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

Creating Katrina, Rebuilding Resilience: Lessons from New Orleans on Vulnerability and Resiliency presents a unique, integrative understanding of Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area, and the progression to disaster vulnerability as well as resilience pathways. The book integrates the understanding of vulnerability and resiliency by examining the relationships among these two concepts and theories.The disaster knowledge of diverse disciplines and professions is brought together in this book, with authors from social work, public health, community organizing, sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, anthropology, geography and the study of religion. The editors offer both expert and an insider perspectives on Katrina because they have lived in New Orleans and experienced Katrina and the recovery. An improved understanding of the recovery and reconstruction phases of disaster is also presented, and these disaster stages have been the least examined in the disaster and emergency management literature.- Integrates multiple disciplines to study the long-term recovery of the worst non-terrorist disaster in U.S. history- Provides a local perspective, with at least one co-contributor for each chapter living in New Orleans- Examines vulnerability and resilience theory and application

Part I

Introduction and Theoretical Framework

Outline

Chapter 1 Editors’ introduction: The voices of the barefoot scholars

Chapter 2 Settlement shifts in the wake of catastrophe

Chapter 3 Vulnerability-plus theory: The integration of community disaster vulnerability and resiliency theories

Chapter 4 A systems approach to vulnerability and resilience in post-Katrina New Orleans

Chapter 5 “Built-in” structural violence and vulnerability: A common threat to resilient disaster recovery

Chapter 1

Editors’ introduction

The voices of the barefoot scholars

Michael J. Zakour¹, Nancy B. Mock² and Paul Kadetz³, ¹West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, United States, ²Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, United States, ³Drew University, Madison, NJ, United States

Abstract

This book will examine one of the worst disasters in the history of the United States. Hurricane Katrina resulted in the near-total destruction of a major US metropolitan area (Knabb, Rhome, & Brown 2005), with over 1500 deaths in New Orleans (alone) in the immediate impact period (Osofsy et al., 2009). Eighty percent of the city's area and built structures were flooded (Cigler, 2007). The disaster in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, in August 2005, will be examined through an historical perspective with the goal of clarifying how vulnerability and resilience interacted to affect the postdisaster recovery and sustainability of New Orleans and coastal Louisiana. The years after Katrina offer many lessons concerning the growing vulnerability associated with sea-level rise and climate extremes. The examination of the precursors and sequelae of Hurricane Katrina through a complex systems lens, with a strong emphasis on local knowledge and capacity, offers important lessons for urban and coastal regions. We develop the theoretical and conceptual framing for this volume, including the concept of structural violence. Finally, we provide a brief overview of the book chapters.

Keywords

Hurricane Katrina; New Orleans; barefoot scholars; disaster; recovery; sea level rise; vulnerability; resilience

Chapter Outline

Classifying Disasters 4

New Orleans and the Livin’ Ain’t Easy 6

Vulnerable Lives 6

Linking Vulnerability and Resilience 7

Working With Cultural Assets 9

Classifying Resilience 10

Social Infrastructure and Capacity 10

Frameworks Utilized in This Volume 11

Disasters Require Multiple Perspectives and Paradigms 12

The Not-So-Hidden Agendas of Post-Katrina Research 13

Hybridizing Knowledge for Disaster Research 13

Barefoot Scholars 14

A Complex Systems Approach: The Umbrella of Our Theoretical Framework 15

Vulnerability and Resilience as a Systems Problem 16

Structural Violence and Intersectionality 17

Book Sections and Chapters 18

References 21

This book examines one of the most devastating, deadly, and costly disasters in the history of the United States. Hurricane Katrina resulted in the near-total destruction of a major US metropolitan area (Knabb, Rhome, & Brown, 2005), with over 1500 deaths in New Orleans alone in the immediate impact period (Osofsky, Osofsky, Kronenberg, Brennan, & Hansel, 2009) and nearly 4000 more deaths in its wake (Stephens et al., 2007). Eighty percent of the city’s area and built structures were flooded (Cigler, 2007). The disaster in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, in August 2005, is examined in this volume through an historical perspective with the goal of providing more clarity of how vulnerability and resilience interacted to affect the postdisaster recovery trajectory, as well as the sustainability of New Orleans and coastal Louisiana. Studying the (ongoing) recovery from Hurricane Katrina via a long-term analysis provides important new insights, theories, and knowledge pertinent to postdisaster recovery and resilience studies. Ongoing disaster vulnerability and resilience are often best understood by studying recovery and reconstruction. Sustainability is only evident over longer periods of time. Post-Katrina recovery has slowly progressed, yet after more than 12 years it is still not completed. Some have called the years after Katrina, “a failed recovery” (Adams, 2013). Failed recovery and reconstruction is actually a “second disaster,” which can lead to as much misery and uncertainty as the original disaster.

The decade following Katrina offers many lessons concerning the growing risks associated with sea-level rise, climate extremes, wetland loss, coastal development, river delta subsidence, and long-term levee management. These growing risks represent a movement toward greater vulnerability. Globally progressing risks challenge group resilience and sustainable human development that are needed to mitigate new hazards. The examination of the precursors and sequelae of Hurricane Katrina through a complex systems lens, with a strong emphasis on local knowledge and capacity, offers important lessons for urban and coastal regions globally, particularly given the ongoing outcomes of climate change. In this introductory chapter we develop the theoretical and conceptual framing for this volume. We then describe how these concepts and theories apply to the Katrina event. Finally, we provide a brief overview of this volume's chapters.

Classifying Disasters

Disasters are the socially constructed human reactions to natural, geological, or meteorological events (Echterling & Wylie, 2013). According to Noji (2005), the human-influenced components of disasters can be classified as technological or complex humanitarian emergencies. Following Noji, we distinguish between natural and human-caused hazards. Hurricane Katrina would most accurately be considered a human-caused hazard. Although the Katrina event has often been classified as a natural disaster, the politics of this designation and the shirking from human accountability is problematic. The actual source of the city’s flooding lies in the structural failure of the levees, worsened by the subsiding coastline, rising sea levels, collapse of the emergency management system, and associated technological disasters, such as the Murphy Oil spill in St. Bernard Parish. All of these causes of flooding were outcomes of human decisions (for a full discussion, see Chapter 6).

The wetlands surrounding New Orleans serve as a last line of defense from a storm surge, yet 2000 of coastal Louisiana’s original 7000 square miles of wetlands have been lost (Freudenburg, Gramling, Laska, & Erikson, 2009). This loss is due, in part, to the environmental damage caused by offshore oil drilling, urban and rural development, and the building of navigation canals and other transportation projects (Bullard & Wright, 2009). Because these fresh-water marshes are at sea level, the increasing rate of sea level rise in the 21st century threatens to destroy additional areas of Louisiana’s wetlands.

September 2017 marked the busiest month of Atlantic Ocean hurricanes on record, commencing with Hurricane Harvey that devastated parts of Texas (particularly Houston) and followed in rapid succession by two category five Hurricanes. Irma wreaked havoc in the Caribbean and Florida, and Maria caused further damage throughout the Caribbean, especially to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. And this only covers recent weather-based disasters that affected the United States and its territories. Current disaster recovery must consider the uncertainty introduced by climate change, particularly for urban settlements on river deltas throughout the world, for it is not clear how rapidly sea levels will rise, or how prevalent or severe weather extremes will become in the future. Furthermore, “Effective risk reduction and adaptation strategies [need to] consider the dynamics of vulnerability and exposure and their linkages with socioeconomic processes, sustainable development, and climate change” (IPCC, 2014, p. 25).

The combined disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the floods that followed was produced by a situation in which both basic priorities that ensured safe infrastructure prior to the storm and effective humanitarian-oriented relief programs after the storm were largely absent (Adams, 2013). The current political milieu in the United States, embracing climate change denial, renders the ongoing lessons from this disaster even more imperative as we brace for more frequent and damaging climate events (see the epilogue of this volume for a fuller discussion). The United States is at an urgent crossroads in climate change policies and interventions. Climate change has already begun to demonstrate markedly negative impacts throughout the world, particularly for the well-being of marginalized populations. Increased risks are especially salient for ethnic and racial minorities in both rural and urban areas in the United States (IPCC, 2014). In New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana, marginalized communities were both disproportionately harmed by Hurricane Katrina and were largely excluded from the recovery process. African-Americans, women, the poor, and other marginalized populations were most impacted by the flooding of New Orleans. Pre-hurricane vulnerabilities limited the participation of many in recovery, rebuilding, and reconstruction efforts. The recovery for many marginalized groups in New Orleans has been delayed and perhaps permanently disrupted (Bullard & Wright, 2009).

The often complex relationships between vulnerability and resilience, as well as environmental liabilities and capabilities, are important lessons to share from this disaster. Although a majority of studies on Hurricane Katrina focused on the physical and geographic vulnerability of New Orleans and South Louisiana, knowledge of social and cultural aspects of vulnerability, susceptibility, and resilience is prioritized in this volume.

New Orleans and the Livin’ Ain’t Easy

Vulnerable Lives

The New Orleans area is a nexus for disasters. Economic, social, cultural, and other forms of capital, as well as institutional contexts, are critical capacities for managing disaster risk. Resources, capital, and capacity have long been inequitably distributed in New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana. This uneven and inequitable distribution was essential for the creation of vulnerability (Oliver-Smith, 2004).

The immediate impact of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent uneven recovery have resulted in a devastating cycle of impoverishment and vulnerability for many households and families. A new cycle of impoverishment has been created by a combination of

• environmental injustice, including the inequitable accessibility to pre-Katrina disaster preparedness and post-Katrina recovery resources;

• damage to social infrastructure, including health and human services provisions; and

• a markedly neoliberal approach to recovery aid.

This cycle has trapped low-income and former middle-class households and individuals in greater disaster vulnerability and thwarted resilient recovery. The political econ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of Contributors
• Part I: Introduction and Theoretical Framework
• Part II: Disaster Vulnerability
• Part III: Disaster Resilience
• Part IV: Conclusion and Lessons Learned
• Epilogue: Back to the future?
• Index