Table Of ContentTHE KATRINA BOOK SHELF
Kai Erikson, Series Editor
In 2005 Hurricane Katrina crashed into the Gulf Coast and
precipitated the flooding of New Orleans. It was a towering
catastrophe by any standard. Some 1,800 persons were killed outright.
More than a million were forced to relocate, many for the remainder
of their lives. A city of five hundred thousand was nearly emptied of
life. The storm stripped away the surface of our social structure and
showed us what lies beneath—a grim picture of race, class, and gender
in these United States.
It is crucial to get this story straight so that we may learn from it and
be ready for that stark inevitability, the next time. When seen through
a social science lens, Katrina informs us of the real human costs of a
disaster and helps prepare us for the events that we know are lurking
just over the horizon. The Katrina Bookshelf is the result of a national
effort to bring experts together in a collaborative program of research
on the human costs of the disaster. The program was supported by the
Ford, Gates, MacArthur, Rockefeller, and Russell Sage Foundations
and sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. This is the
most comprehensive social science coverage of a disaster to be found
anywhere in the literature. It is also a deeply human story.
CHILDREN OF KATRINA
ALICE FOTHERGILL AND LORI PEEK
University of Texas Press
AUSTIN
Copyright © 2015 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
First edition, 2015
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to:
Permissions
University of Texas Press
P.O. Box 7819
Austin, TX 78713–7819
http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/rp-form
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Fothergill, Alice, author.
Children of Katrina / Alice Fothergill and Lori Peek. — First edition.
pages cm — (The Katrina bookshelf)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4773-0389-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4773-0546-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Hurricane Katrina, 2005—Social aspects. 2. Child disaster victims—Louisiana—New
Orleans—Social conditions. 3. Child disaster victims—Louisiana—New Orleans—
Psychological aspects. I. Peek, Lori A., author. II. Title. III. Series: Katrina bookshelf.
HV6362005.N4 F67 2015
363.34'922092530976335—dc23 2015009040
doi:10.7560/303894
ISBN 978-1-4773-0390-0 (library e-book)
ISBN 978-1-4773-0391-7 (individual e-book)
For Joe, Maggie, and Jeff
–A. F.
For Mom and Dad
–L. P.
This book is dedicated in memory of
William A. Anderson (1937–2013),
a friend, mentor, leader,
and champion for research on children and disasters.
There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with
children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their
rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives
are free from fear and want, and that they can grow up in peace.
KOFI ANNAN
CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
FOREWORD by David M. Abramson and Irwin Redlener
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1. The Youngest Survivors
2. Children, Youth, and Disaster
I. DECLINING TRAJECTORY
3. Daniel: Cumulative Vulnerability and Continuing Crises
4. Mekana: Disaster as Catalyst
II. FINDING-EQUILIBRIUM TRAJECTORY
5. Isabel and Zachary: Resource Depth and Long-Term Stability
6. Cierra: Mobilizing Resources
III. FLUCTUATING TRAJECTORY
7. Jerron: Misaligned Spheres
8. Clinton: Rapid Movement
Conclusion
Appendix A. Who Counts as a Child?
Appendix B. Studying Children and Youth in Disaster: A Note on
Methods
Appendix C. Recommendations for Improved Disaster Preparedness,
Response, and Recovery Efforts for Children and Youth
NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND SERIES EDITOR
INDEX
FIGURES AND TABLES
FIGURES
Figure 1.1. Children in the study sample
Figure 1.2. Field research locations
Figure 1.3. Drawing of “what Katrina looked like,” by Joseph, 10
years old
Figure 2.1. Spheres of children’s lives
Figure 2.2. Cumulative vulnerability before, during, and after disaster
Figure 2.3. Model of mobilizing resources for children and youth
Figure 2.4. Post-disaster trajectories among the focal children
Figure I.1. Declining trajectories—Daniel and Mekana
Figure 3.1. Daniel’s multiple post-disaster moves by location
Figure 3.2. Daniel’s time in school and out of school after Katrina
Figure 4.1. Mekana’s multiple post-disaster moves by location
Figure II.1. Finding-equilibrium trajectories—Isabel, Zachary, and
Cierra
Figure 5.1. My Moms, by Tiffany, seven years old
Figure 5.2. Drawing of “what Katrina did to New Orleans,” by
Zachary, 11 years old
Figure III.1. Fluctuating trajectories—Jerron and Clinton
Figure 7.1. Mom, by Jerron, 11 years old
Figure 7.2. Drawing of tattered pre-K certificate, by Jerron, 11 years
old
Figure 8.1. Drawing of “what Katrina looked like,” by Clinton, eight
years old
Figure 9.1. Three post-Katrina trajectories
Figure 9.2. Children’s capacities: helping others and helping
themselves
Figure B.1. Methods of data collection
Figure B.2. Drawing of “what Katrina looked like,” by Isabel, 11
years old
Figure B.3. Drawing of “something difficult that happened because of
Katrina,” by Chance, seven years old
Figure B.4. Drawing of “something good that came out of Katrina,” by
Tiffany, six years old
Figure B.5. Flash cards used as interview prompts
Figure B.6. Research time line
TABLES
Table 1.1. Select characteristics of the seven focal children
Table B.1. Observation sites and types of observations
FOREWORD
When the late psychologist Norman Garmezy, a pioneer of the field of
resilience, first began studying positive adaptation in children in the
early 1970s, he sought out stories of children who had thrived despite
being exposed to highly stressful environments, particularly those
associated with poverty. “Who will fall to the ravaging effects of
mental disorder,” he declared to his colleagues at a 1970 conference,
“or who will, despite stress and adversity, remain inviolate to
psychopathology remains a problem of mystery and challenge.”1
Garmezy had already spent two decades studying war veterans,
schizophrenics, and the children of schizophrenics. In each, he sought
to illuminate the predictive path, those factors in people’s lives that
foreshadowed either positive or negative outcomes, that divided the
successful from the unsuccessful, and the adaptive from the
psychopathological.
At the start of his two-decades-long children’s study, Garmezy
visited public schools throughout Minnesota, asking the same question
of the school principals, nurses, and social workers with whom he
met: were there any children in the school whose background worried
them when they first learned of them, but who now elicited pride
when they walked the school halls because they had succeeded despite
steep odds? Illustrations of resilience were often distilled in snapshots
of a child’s life. He learned of one nine-year-old boy who was being
raised by a single mother, herself an alcoholic. The two of them often
had little food in the house. Each day the boy would bring to school a
“bread sandwich,” two pieces of bread with nothing in between, in
order to blend in with the other children bringing their lunches from
home. He didn’t want the other children to pity him, Garmezy learned,
nor to know of his mother’s failings. As Garmezy and his colleagues
evolved their theories of resilience and adaptation they accumulated
many such stories. Some were drawn from children who experienced
