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Hurricanes, floods, oil spills, disease, and disappearing wetlands are some of the many environmental disasters that impact the Gulf South. The contributors to Environmental Disaster in the Gulf South explore the threat, frequency, and management of this region’s disasters from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Scholars from the fields of history, sociology, and anthropology examine the underlying causes of vulnerability to natural hazards in the coastal states while also suggesting ways to increase resilience. Greg O’Brien considers the New Orleans flood of 1849; Andy Horowitz, the Galveston storm of 1900; and Christopher M. Church, the 1928 hurricane in Florida and the Caribbean. Urmi Engineer Willoughby delves into the turn-of-the-century yellow fever outbreaks in New Orleans and local attempts to eradicate them, while Abraham H. Gibson and Cindy Ermus discuss the human introduction of invasive species and their long-term impact on the region’s ecosystem. Roberto E. Barrios looks at political-ecological susceptibility in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, and Kevin Fox Gotham treats storm- and flood-defense infrastructures. In his afterword, Ted Steinberg ponders what the future holds when the capitalist state supports an unwinnable battle between land developers and nature. These case studies offer new ways of understanding humans’ interactions with the unique, and at times unforgiving, environment of the Gulf South. These lessons are particularly important as we cope with the effects of climate change and seek to build resilience and reduce vulnerability through enhanced awareness, adequate preparation, and efficient planning.
Hurricanes, floods, oil spills, disease, and disappearing wetlands are some of the many environmental disasters that impact the Gulf South. The contributors to Environmental Disaster in the Gulf South explore the threat, frequency, and management of this region’s disasters from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Scholars from the fields of history, sociology, and anthropology examine the underlying causes of vulnerability to natural hazards in the coastal states while also suggesting ways to increase resilience. Greg O’Brien considers the New Orleans flood of 1849; Andy Horowitz, the Galveston storm of 1900; and Christopher M. Church, the 1928 hurricane in Florida and the Caribbean. Urmi Engineer Willoughby delves into the turn-of-the-century yellow fever outbreaks in New Orleans and local attempts to eradicate them, while Abraham H. Gibson and Cindy Ermus discuss the human introduction of invasive species and their long-term impact on the region’s ecosystem. Roberto E. Barrios looks at political-ecological susceptibility in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, and Kevin Fox Gotham treats storm- and flood-defense infrastructures. In his afterword, Ted Steinberg ponders what the future holds when the capitalist state supports an unwinnable battle between land developers and nature. These case studies offer new ways of understanding humans’ interactions with the unique, and at times unforgiving, environment of the Gulf South. These lessons are particularly important as we cope with the effects of climate change and seek to build resilience and reduce vulnerability through enhanced awareness, adequate preparation, and efficient planning.
Black Beaches and Bayous: The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster provides a multidisciplinary, international perspective on one of the major disaster events within the United States during the last ten years. Scholars from various disciplines including sociology, political science, ecology, psychology, and criminal justice investigate the different components and issues associated with this event. The contributors address topics such as the social and historical context of fossil fuel use, steps within the technological disaster process, and similarities and differences between this disaster and other technological disasters. They also discuss the social and psychological impacts on Gulf Coast residents, the transformation of natural ecological systems, changes in risk assessment, and media portrayals of the Obama administration and its response to this disaster.
On April 20, 2010, the Macondo well blew out, costing the lives of 11 men, and beginning a catastrophe that sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill disrupted an entire region’s economy, damaged fisheries and critical habitats, and brought vividly to light the risks of deepwater drilling for oil and gas—the latest frontier in the national energy supply. Soon after, President Barack Obama appointed a seven-member Commission to investigate the disaster, analyze its causes and effects, and recommend the actions necessary to minimize such risks in the future. The Commission’s report offers the American public and policymakers alike the fullest account available of what happened in the Gulf and why, and proposes actions—changes in company behavior, reform of government oversight, and investments in research and technology—required as industry moves forward to meet the nation’s energy needs.
"The objective of this report is to identify and establish a roadmap on how to do that, and lay the groundwork for transforming how this Nation- from every level of government to the private sector to individual citizens and communities - pursues a real and lasting vision of preparedness. To get there will require significant change to the status quo, to include adjustments to policy, structure, and mindset"--P. 2.
Natural disasters are having an increasing effect on the lives of people in the United States and throughout the world. Every decade, property damage caused by natural disasters and hazards doubles or triples in the United States. More than half of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of a coast, and all Americans are at risk from such hazards as fires, earthquakes, floods, and wind. The year 2010 saw 950 natural catastrophes around the world-the second highest annual total ever-with overall losses estimated at $130 billion. The increasing impact of natural disasters and hazards points to increasing importance of resilience, the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, or more successfully adapt to actual or potential adverse events, at the individual , local, state, national, and global levels. Assessing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters reviews the effects of Hurricane Katrina and other natural and human-induced disasters on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi and to learn more about the resilience of those areas to future disasters. Topics explored in the workshop range from insurance, building codes, and critical infrastructure to private-sector issues, public health, nongovernmental organizations and governance. This workshop summary provides a rich foundation of information to help increase the nation's resilience through actionable recommendations and guidance on the best approaches to reduce adverse impacts from hazards and disasters.
This contributed volume examines the intersection of trauma and disaster behavioral health from a lifespan perspective, filling a critical gap in the literature on disaster mental health research. In the chapters, the contributors evaluate behavioral data of adults exposed to various environmental events in both the United States (i.e., the 2017 Hurricanes Irma in Florida and Harvey in Houston) and abroad (i.e., missile fire in the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict). Contributors also suggest future directions, practices, and policies for trauma and disaster response. The three parts of the book provide an overview of disaster behavioral health across the lifespan, propose practical applications of research theories to psychosocial problems resulting from disasters and trauma, and evaluate disaster and trauma interventions from a macro-level perspective. Topics explored among the chapters include: Integrating Trauma-Informed Principles into Disaster Behavioral Health Targeting Older Adults Cultural Competence and Disaster Mental Health When Disasters Strike: Navigating the Challenges of “Sudden Science” Frameworks of Recovery: Health Caught at the Intersection of Housing, Education, and Employment Opportunities After Hurricane Katrina Substance Use Issues and Behavioral Health After a Disaster Psychosocial Recovery After Natural Disaster: International Advocacy, Policy, and Recommendations The Intersection of Trauma and Disaster Behavioral Health is a vital resource for researchers whose expertise covers the domains of trauma, health and wellness, and natural and technological disasters. The book also is a useful supplement to graduate courses in psychology, sociology, social work, disaster science, human ecology, and public health.
The definitive history of Katrina: an epic of citymaking, revealing how engineers and oil executives, politicians and musicians, and neighbors black and white built New Orleans, then watched it sink under the weight of their competing ambitions. Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, but the decisions that caused the disaster extend across the twentieth century. After the city weathered a major hurricane in 1915, its Sewerage and Water Board believed that developers could safely build housing away from the high ground near the Mississippi. And so New Orleans grew in lowlands that relied on significant government subsidies to stay dry. When the flawed levee system surrounding the city and its suburbs failed, these were the neighborhoods that were devastated. The homes that flooded belonged to Louisianans black and white, rich and poor. Katrina’s flood washed over the twentieth-century city. The flood line tells one important story about Katrina, but it is not the only story that matters. Andy Horowitz investigates the response to the flood, when policymakers reapportioned the challenges the water posed, making it easier for white New Orleanians to return home than it was for African Americans. And he explores how the profits and liabilities created by Louisiana’s oil industry have been distributed unevenly among the state’s citizens for a century, prompting both dreams of abundance—and a catastrophic land loss crisis that continues today. Laying bare the relationship between structural inequality and physical infrastructure—a relationship that has shaped all American cities—Katrina offers a chilling glimpse of the future disasters we are already creating.
There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster is the first comprehensive critical book on the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. The disaster will go down on record as one of the worst in American history, not least because of the government’s inept and cavalier response. But it is also a huge story for other reasons; the impact of the hurricane was uneven, and race and class were deeply implicated in the unevenness. Hartman and. Squires assemble two dozen critical scholars and activists who present a multifaceted portrait of the social implications of the disaster. The book covers the response to the disaster and the roles that race and class played, its impact on housing and redevelopment, the historical context of urban disasters in America and the future of economic development in the region. It offers strategic guidance for key actors - government agencies, financial institutions, neighbourhood organizations - in efforts to rebuild shattered communities.
In The Place with No Edge, Adam Mandelman follows three centuries of human efforts to inhabit and control the lower Mississippi River delta, the vast watery flatlands spreading across much of southern Louisiana. He finds that people’s use of technology to tame unruly nature in the region has produced interdependence with—rather than independence from—the environment. Created over millennia by deposits of silt and sand, the Mississippi River delta is one of the most dynamic landscapes in North America. From the eighteenth-century establishment of the first French fort below New Orleans to the creation of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan in the 2000s, people have attempted to harness and master this landscape through technology. Mandelman examines six specific interventions employed in the delta over time: levees, rice flumes, pullboats, geophysical surveys, dredgers, and petroleum cracking. He demonstrates that even as people seemed to gain control over the environment, they grew more deeply intertwined with—and vulnerable to—it. The greatest folly, Mandelman argues, is to believe that technology affords mastery. Environmental catastrophes of coastal land loss and petrochemical pollution may appear to be disconnected, but both emerged from the same fantasy of harnessing nature to technology. Similarly, the levee system’s failures and the subsequent deluge after Hurricane Katrina owe as much to centuries of human entanglement with the delta as to global warming’s rising seas and strengthening storms. The Place with No Edge advocates for a deeper understanding of humans’ relationship with nature. It provides compelling evidence that altering the environment—whether to make it habitable, profitable, or navigable —inevitably brings a response, sometimes with unanticipated consequences. Mandelman encourages a mindfulness of the ways that our inventions engage with nature and a willingness to intervene in responsible, respectful ways.