Disaster center researchers to study Katrina response

2:01 p.m., Sept. 15, 2005--The University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center has begun dispatching researchers to study issues related to the response to the widespread devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast.

One graduate student is now in Houston to meet with officials and evacuees in the Astrodome, which is being used as a makeshift shelter, and six more will leave Wednesday, Sept. 21, for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Biloxi and other stricken cities and communities in the region.

Participating graduate students are Joseph Trainor, DRC project coordinator, William Donner, Jenniffer Santos, Lauren Barsky, Daniel Marks, Manuel Torres and John Barnshaw.

They will be joined in the field by between one and three faculty members, according to Havidan Rodriguez, director of the DRC.

Rodriguez said the faculty, students and staff at the DRC are “deeply touched and saddened” by the devastating impact and consequences of Hurricane Katrina. “By any standards, Hurricane Katrina resulted in a catastrophic event that led to the evacuation and long-term displacement of hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout the Gulf Coast area,” he said. “The extensive loss of life, human suffering and destruction of property was overwhelming for these communities and undoubtedly had important sociological, psychological, economic and political ramifications, nationally and internationally.”

In light of the devastation and extreme human suffering generated by the disaster, Rodriguez said it is important to recognize that it “provides a unique opportunity and responsibility for those of us in the disaster field to critically think about and reflect on a number of important issues pertaining to disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.“

He said he hopes the event “will allow us to learn from our mistakes, minimize our weaknesses and build on our strengths in order to develop a disaster resilient society, thus minimizing the loss of life, injuries and human suffering in future events of this nature.”

Rodriguez said the DRC’s social science research team will explore a number of issues, including warnings, evacuation, shelter, long-term housing and reports of looting or appropriation of items to fulfill basic needs in some of the affected communities.

The team will be supported by funding from agencies and research projects, including the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Science Foundation and the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as well as DRC.

During the past two weeks, DRC has been “continuously and extensively sharing information with the public, the media and government officials involved in the response efforts,” Rodriguez said.

He said he hopes the DRC’s research initiatives “will make important contributions not only to the field of disaster research but also to policy and decision-makers, practitioners and communities at-large, both at the national and international level, in understanding the social, economic and political dynamics that contribute to the generation of disasters and how we can alleviate or mitigate the impact and consequences of such devastating events.”

DRC is the oldest social science research center in the world devoted to the study of disasters. During the past 42 years, researchers from the center have conducted more than 600 field studies, traveling to communities throughout the United States and to a number of foreign countries, including India and Sri Lanka less than one month after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

DRC researchers have carried out systematic studies on a broad range of disaster types, including hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hazardous chemical incidents, plane crashes, civil disturbances and terrorist attacks, including that on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Article by Neil Thomas

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.