Development Choices and Disaster Creation
11/02/09
Project Description:
The findings summarized below come from research on economic and
property development trends along the Mississippi River and Gulf
Coast. This research focuses generally on residential and
commercial development in the Louisiana floodplains, the
Mississippi River-Gulf Coast Outlet (MR-GO) and their surrounding
wetlands. More specifically, it contrasted two well-known cases
of flooding--the first in the upper Mississippi River Valley and the
second in Katrina-devastated New Orleans--to show how economic and
property development choices may have exacerbated or even helped create
flood disasters.
Key Research Findings:
- FEMA altered its flood-hazard maps to show areas that were subject
to minimal risk as "protected." This change allowed developers to
sell properties without informing buyers of a very real flood threat.
- The construction of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO), a
120 km. canal parallel to the Mississippi River raised salinity in
nearby soils and may have destroyed as much at 65,000 acres of wetland
vital to hurricane defense.
- The existing risk of hurricanes in the Gulf Coast was greatly
exacerbated by these and other unwise land development decisions that
benefitted a select few and often never proved as profitable as
anticipated. MR-GO, for instance, requires increasing
expenditures for dredging and maintenance, even as traffic continues to
drop on the canal.
- Over the last two generations there have been
repeated calls for reform of existing economic, land management and
disaster protection policies. However, these calls have been
ignored even as natural hurricane protections along the Gulf Coast have
continued to erode.
- Hurricane protections such as sea walls and levees, though improved in
the past 40 years, are simply inadequate to protect Gulf Coast cities
whose natural hurricane defenses have been compromised.
- Allowing a select few to profit from industrial
development that weakens natural hurricane defenses has forced the
public at large to bear the costs of that development in the form of an
increased threat of flood disaster.
Researcher Recommendations:
- The economic costs of weakening natural hurricane defenses in the
Gulf Coast are substantial. Economic policy must aim to preserve
the long-term health of wetlands and swamps.
- Current FEMA flood-hazard maps should be changed to reflect actual
flood-hazard risks, even where the risk of flood is unlikely or
remote. Individuals cannot be expected to carry sufficient
insurance to protect their homes against flood hazards when those
hazards do not appear on the government's flood hazard maps.
- Reconstruction efforts should focus on repairing and preserving
natural hurricane defenses, particularly the wide band of wetlands
surrounding the Louisiana coast.
Research Contacts:
William R. Freudenburg, Dehlsen Professor, Department of Environmental Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, (805) 893-8282, freudenburg@es.ucsb.edu.
Robert Gramling, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, (337-482-5375), gramling@louisiana.edu.
Related Bibliography:
1) William R. Freudenburg, Robert
Gramling, et al. “Organizing Hazards, Engineering Disasters? Improving
the Recognition of Political-Economic Factors in the Creation of
Disasters.” Social Forces, vol. 87, no. 2, pp. 1015-1038.
2) William R. Freudenburg, Robert Gramling, et al. “Disproportionality and Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet.” Social Science Quarterly, vol. 90, no. 3, pp. 497-515.
The SSRC Katrina Task Force oversees a range of research projects
on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and acts as a clearinghouse for
information emerging from those projects. For additional literature on
Hurricane Katrina see our Research Bibliography. For more information about the SSRC Katrina Task Force see the Katrina Hub or contact Siovahn Walker at
walker@ssrc.org. For other Research Bulletins see our Archive.
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