Article ID: CBB001421165

What Caused the Flood? Controversy and Closure in the Hurricane Katrina Disaster (2014)

unapi

Causal attribution for one of the largest disasters in American history has undergone three major shifts. From August 2005 through November 2009, the principal explanation of the flooding of New Orleans was characterized by three distinguishable phases -- reactive, organizational, and legal -- as the catastrophic events of Hurricane Katrina were ascribed to natural, geotechnical, and environmental causes. From a monstrous storm, to failed levees, and ultimately the loss of wetlands through an insidious shipping channel, `what happened' should be viewed as a technoscientific development in which media and litigation processes transformed the structural conditions for the production of knowledge claims. Video ethnography is used to examine causal transitions as structural conditions of inquiry changed. Levees -- the most important symbol of failure -- shifted from cause to consequence. Understanding of disaster cycled from nature to humans, and to nature once more.

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Authors & Contributors
Horowitz, Andy
Wall, Barbara Mann
Christian, John T.
Weinkle, Jessica
Byrnes, W. Malcolm
Franco Pozzati
Concepts
Disasters; catastrophes
Hurricanes; typhoons
Floods
Hurricane Katrina
Engineering
Science and politics
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
20th century, late
19th century
18th century
Places
United States
New Orleans (Louisiana, U.S.)
Gulf of Mexico
New York City (New York, U.S.)
Japan
Belarus
Institutions
National Weather Service (U.S.)
International Red Cross
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