Abstract
We assess governmental and non-governmental responses to disasters using primary data of Hurricane Katrina survivors along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Non-governmental sources include nonprofit relief groups, faith-based organizations, and survivors’ self-identified social networks. We assess the impact of these governmental and non-governmental relief efforts on survivors’ economic, psychological, physical, and social effects from the disaster. Our results show that social isolation significantly increases perceptions of disaster disturbance and decreases perceived rates of disaster relief. Additionally, survivors perceive that social networks provide greater sources of psychological, financial and social disaster relief than government sources. However, survivors’ social networks decay sharply in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, and they do not appear to fully recover a year from the disaster. These social networks themselves are not fully resilient to a disaster.
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Notes
United States Department of Commerce. Hurricane Katrina Service Assessment Report (PDF). Retrieved on December 14, 2006.
For an exhaustive review of the disaster-related research, see Rodriguez et al. (2006).
“Perceptions of Disaster Relief and Recovery: Analyzing the Importance of Social and Kinship Networks among Hurricane Survivors of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.” National Science Foundation Grant #0555136.
The particular “before” economic satisfaction questions are as follows: “How satisfied were you with your financial situation before Hurricane Katrina?; “How satisfied were you with the general economy of the Gulf Coast area before Hurricane Katrina?” These economic satisfaction questions were repeated later in the survey instrument replacing “before” with satisfaction “now” and, later, satisfaction “one year from now.” The marginal differences between responses were used to construct disturbance, relief, and recovery variables.
The particular “before” health satisfaction questions are as follows: “How satisfied were you with your physical health before Hurricane Katrina?; “How satisfied were you with your psychological health before Hurricane Katrina?” These health satisfaction questions were repeated later in the survey instrument extracting “before” with satisfaction “now” and, later, satisfaction “one year from now.” The marginal differences between responses were used to construct disturbance, relief, and recovery variables.
The particular “before” relationship satisfaction questions are as follows: “How satisfied were you with your professional and business relationships before Hurricane Katrina?” These social relationship satisfaction questions were repeated later in the survey instrument replacing “before” with satisfaction “now” and, later, satisfaction “one year from now.” The marginal differences between responses were used to construct disturbance, relief, and recovery variables.
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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0555136. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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Forgette, R., Dettrey, B., Van Boening, M. et al. Before, Now, and After: Assessing Hurricane Katrina Relief. Popul Res Policy Rev 28, 31–44 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-008-9113-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-008-9113-6