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Abstract
In this paper, I focus on the process of evacuation and how, in the
case of Hurricane Katrina, this casts light on the position of older
people in contemporary western society.
All the evidence I draw on I have gleaned from the Internet. I have not
interviewed anyone by phone or email. Most of the material I have
collected are newspaper and media reports, but increasingly there is a
body of official documentation reviewing what went wrong and how
similar disasters might be avoided. In order to keep this unfunded
study manageable I have limited it to text and not included visual
images of the disaster.
I have organised the paper around four aims:
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to briefly summarise the impact of Katrina on New Orleans
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to consider the significance of age in how people respond to mass evacuations
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to describe how the evacuation of older people from New Orleans was managed
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to reflect on the wider significance of the disaster.
Other Information:
A paper presented at the annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers, London, 31 August 2006.
Online Availability
Text available via Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences