Hurricane Katrina's Families and Children: Before, during and after the Deluge

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERTA REHNER IVERSEN

Left to Chance: Hurricane Katrina and the Story of Two New Orleans Neighborhoods and Children of Katrina are two titles in an important University of Texas Press series called the Katrina Bookshelf. Series editor Kai Erikson is well known for his seminal book Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood (1976), about the Buffalo Creek flood disaster on 26 February 1972 in which over 132 million US gallons of black waste water broke through three dams and virtually wiped out sixteen coal towns in West Virginia, demolishing (as Erikson's book title indicates) everything in its path. Similarly, and with the same aim as Everything in Its Path of combining broadly relevant findings with the particulars that inhere to every catastrophe, these books in the Katrina Bookshelf series of five (to date) focus on how families in two particular New Orleans neighborhoods (Left to Chance) and on how children and youth in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast (Children of Katrina) navigated and negotiated their lives before and after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana on 29 August 2005. Both books, then, track how people and neighborhoods were impacted during the hurricane, immediately afterward, and up to seven years after the floodwaters receded. Valuably for future policy and prevention efforts, the stance in both books is the continuous juxtaposition of individual and structural influences on disaster outcomes.

NASPA Journal ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan K Gardner ◽  
Kristy Miller ◽  
Marco J Barker ◽  
Jennifer Loftin ◽  
Marla Erwin ◽  
...  

Fifteen student affairs administrators from five institutions of higher education in New Orleans were interviewed regarding their experiences immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina and how the crisis affected their work. Participants were chosen for their diversity among racial, gender, and institutional contexts. Analyses of the interviews resulted in four themes that describe the differences between how public versus private institutional cultures affected these administrators’ responses and the decision making that occurred in the wake of the storm. These themes include (a) decision making, (b) communication, (c) resources and limitations, and (d) student affairs status. Implications for policy, practice, and research are included.


Author(s):  
Marguerite Nguyen

This concluding chapter examines representations of Vietnamese Americans before and after Hurricane Katrina. The recuperation of American political and military might in the 1980s marked a transition in representations of Vietnamese Americans, as the New Orleans media began to focus on stories of Vietnamese American economic and educational “success.” Nevertheless, Vietnamese Americans lived more or less under the radar until about thirty years later, when they were once again thrust into the media limelight because of their quick return and recovery after Hurricane Katrina. Once potential objects of New Orleans exclusion, Vietnamese Americans now represented the city at its best, with national and international media outlets upholding the community's efforts as a story of hope and achievement in the aftermath of disaster.


2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (04) ◽  
pp. 748-752
Author(s):  
Christine L. Day

AbstractAfter Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, flooding the city of New Orleans for several weeks after levees collapsed, the city struggled to recover and rebuild. Scholars and activists participating in the roundtable, “Katrina Seven Years On: The Politics of Race and Recovery,” at the 2012 APSA Annual Meeting in New Orleans, were to discuss recovery and racial justice in post-Katrina urban planning and rebuilding efforts, grassroots movements, job recovery, fair housing, and cultural revival. Although the 2012 meeting was canceled as Hurricane Isaac threatened New Orleans anew, panelists offered their observations and ideas to be summarized forPSreaders.


2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-158
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dawson ◽  
Lawrence D. Bobo

By the time you read this issue of the Du Bois Review, it will be nearly a year after the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina swept the Gulf Coast and roiled the nation. While this issue does not concentrate on the disaster, (the next issue of the DBR will be devoted solely to research on the social, economic, and political ramifications of the Katrina disaster), the editors would be amiss if we did not comment on an event that once again exposed the deadly fault lines of the American racial order. The loss of the lives of nearly 1500 citizens, the many more tens of thousands whose lives were wrecked, and the destruction of a major American city as we know it, all had clear racial overtones as the story unfolded. Indeed, the racial story of the disaster does not end with the tragic loss of life, the disruption of hundred of thousands of lives, nor the physical, social, economic, and political collapse of an American urban jewel. The political map of the city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana (and probably Texas), and the region is being rewritten as the large Black and overwhelmingly Democratic population of New Orleans was dispersed out of Louisiana, with states such as Texas becoming the perhaps permanent recipients of a large share of the evacuees.


2019 ◽  
pp. 125-134
Author(s):  
Shelley Ingram

In 2012, a forecaster on The Weather Channel allegedly reported that an incoming hurricane was a threat to “the landmass between New Orleans and Mobile.” The folklore of the “landmass” internet meme cycle that followed, in which residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast mocked their own invisibility from mainstream consciousness, could easily be dismissed as an inconsequential bit of fun. However, this chapter argues that the meme is part of a larger pattern of expressive culture that, when examined, reveals lingering trauma from Hurricane Katrina and the disturbing systems of oppression—racial, economic, cultural—still at work in the region and, consequently, the nation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 757-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haig A. Goenjian ◽  
Ernest S. Chiu ◽  
Mary Ellen Alexander ◽  
Hugo St. Hilaire ◽  
Michael Moses

Background Reports after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina have documented an increase in stress reactions and environmental teratogens (arsenic, mold, alcohol). Objective To assess the incidence of cleft pathology before and after the hurricane, and the distribution of cleft cases by gender and race. Methods Retrospective chart review of cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CUP) and cleft palate (CP) cases registered with the Cleft and Craniofacial Team at Children's Hospital of New Orleans, the surgical center that treated cleft cases in Greater New Orleans between 2004 and 2007. Live birth data were obtained from the Louisiana State Center for Health Statistics. Results The incidence of cleft cases, beginning 9 months after the hurricane (i.e., June 1, 2006) was significantly higher compared with the period before the hurricane (0.80 versus 1.42; p = .008). Within racial group comparisons showed a higher incidence among African Americans versus whites (0.42 versus 1.22; p = .01). The distribution of CUP and CP cases by gender was significant ( p = .05). Conclusion The increase in the incidence of cleft cases after the hurricane may be attributable to increased stress and teratogenic factors associated with the hurricane. The increase among African Americans may have been due to comparatively higher exposure to environmental risk factors. These findings warrant further investigation to replicate the results elsewhere in the Gulf to determine whether there is a causal relationship between environmental risk factors and increased cleft pathology.


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