A woman just getting settled in New Orleans with her fiancé is uprooted by Hurricane Katrina. She spends the two months after the hurricane in various parts of Louisiana trying to pick up the pieces of her uprooted reality. Along the way, she encounters ordinary people who act as inspirations and is also reminded of her deceased Chinese grandmother, whom she was care-giver to before she died and whose stories about life in China and the US parallel the woman´s own life during the post-Katrina months of vulnerability and change.

For nearly 200 years, there has been a neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana named Milneburg, which has been constantly reimagined by its inhabitants and others. From its inception as a port of entry in 1832 until the 2011, it has been called a world-class resort, the poor-man's Riviera, a seedy red-light district, a cradle of jazz, a village, a swath of suburbia and a neighborhood. It has been destroyed eight times due to storms, fires, and civic or governmental neglect. Each time its residents have rebuilt it. In its last iteration as a post-Katrina neighborhood, the residents reestablished the Milneburg Neighborhood Association in order to define its boundaries, gain control of its redevelopment and restrict who lived there as well as what activities were permitted. This is a case study of the trajectory of Milneburg and the cultural adaptations of its residents to keep it distinct, vital and respectable.

This research addresses a significant gap in previous work on the formation of urban and suburban black skateboarding subcultures. By using data generated through oral histories, photographs, mapping, and literature review, this study explores why black youth initially began skateboarding in New Orleans in the mid-2000s. In contrast to the scholarly literature and local popular perception, this visual anthropological study aims to provide an alternative origin story of black skateboarding in Post-Katrina New Orleans, and to examine the continuing popularity of the sport within the young black community.

Thesis (M.S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Family Studies and Social Work, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-39).

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the United States in August of 2005. While an emerging literature base details the consequences and lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, a critical missing piece for understanding Hurricane Katrina American landfall is a rhetorical perspective. I argue a rhetorical perspective can significantly contribute to a better understanding of Hurricane Katrina’s implications for creating policy, community and identity. As a case study, I employ Kenneth Burke’s cluster analysis to examine the use of the label “Third World” to describe New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the United States in the mass media coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

This is a research-based thesis building upon the study conducted over the past two years with Dr. Elizabeth English on the Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP). The BFP is currently developing an amphibious foundation system to retrofit vernacular wooden ‘shotgun’ houses in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. This neighbourhood was chosen because of its unique cultural heritage and the severe, but recoverable, damage incurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The BFP system will allow homes to float when flooding occurs, rising and descending vertically to avoid flood damage. It provides an alternative solution to permanent static elevation, the mitigation strategy currently recommended by the United States federal government. The thesis will demonstrate how the Buoyant Foundation Project is a culturally supportive, technically feasible, economical, sustainable and resilient form of flood mitigation for post-Katrina New Orleans.

In this thesis, I enquire into how the USA – our world’s wealthiest and most powerful nation –  and its federal government has dealt with two of its most severe natural disasters: the drought and dust storms that plagued the Great Plains during the 1930’s, i.e. the Dust Bowl, and Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in late August 2005.  I attempt to identify differences and similarities and analyze if and, in that case, how the hegemonic politico-economic paradigm affected the federal management of these crises. This comparison is made relevant by the fact that two differing paradigms were at play during these events. In the thirties, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched his “New Deal”, a series of counter cyclical measures in line with the Keynesian school of economics, as a response to the overwhelming economic depression as well as the raging drought. In sharp contrast, Hurricane Katrina swept over a country ridden by decades of neoliberal governance. I show that political economy plays an important role in the success and/or failure of, in this case, the United States’ management of natural disasters. Finally, I argue for the return (or, rather, the creation) of an expanded and more socially and environmentally conscious public sector, which, in times of crisis, is able to represent all of its citizens – regardless of class or race.

In August and September of 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast with damages estimated at $85 billion. Hurricane Katrina was so devastating that the number of lives lost and injuries sustained is still being calculated. Hurricane Rita, which made landfall in the southwestern part of the Louisiana just a few weeks after Katrina, did not cause as much damage as Katrina but was devastating nonetheless. In both cases, two Louisiana community colleges, Nunez Community College and SOWELA Technical Community College, were damaged to the point that many doubted that either college would have a future. Both community colleges, however, continued classes and are in operation today. This study examines the actions of the institutional leadership at Nunez Community College and SOWELA Technical Community College in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A constructivist grounded theory approach was used to conduct case studies on each college. A substantive theory emerged from the findings explaining the resiliency of both institutions. / text

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) offers preservationists a unique tool with the potential to revolutionize hazard mitigation for historic resources. The program’s ability to link information to a specific geographical location and efficiently disperse this information can solve two of the most destructive issues of current natural disaster response practices: a lack of organized information and an efficient means of disseminating this data. The resources necessary to implement a GIS program and to the requisite cooperation between both public and private preservation organizations may seem prohibitive to many preservation programs; yet, the benefits make this initial investment cost-effective. Despite efforts to mitigate disasters, both natural and man-made, their effects constantly threaten historic resources. In the past two decades, the United States has made significant strides toward a greater protection of these sites; yet damage continues to occur. In this thesis, I have investigated methods of risk mitigation implemented in the United States at both the state and local level, and in the public and private sectors, using New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as a case study. Through this analysis, I discovered that a lack of accessible, organized information and cooperation between preservationists compounded the damage caused by the actual event itself. I argue that the implementation of GIS could solve many of these issues by providing a means of both consolidating data and distributing it among responders. In this work, I demonstrate the ability of GIS to easily solve the problems of current mitigation practices for historic resources. By discussing the tools and basic functions of the program, I clearly illustrate this utility to those unfamiliar with the program, while arguing its potential as a mitigation implement to all preservationists. / text

This is a research-based thesis building upon the study conducted over the past two years with Dr. Elizabeth English on the Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP). The BFP is currently developing an amphibious foundation system to retrofit vernacular wooden ‘shotgun’ houses in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. This neighbourhood was chosen because of its unique cultural heritage and the severe, but recoverable, damage incurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The BFP system will allow homes to float when flooding occurs, rising and descending vertically to avoid flood damage. It provides an alternative solution to permanent static elevation, the mitigation strategy currently recommended by the United States federal government. The thesis will demonstrate how the Buoyant Foundation Project is a culturally supportive, technically feasible, economical, sustainable and resilient form of flood mitigation for post-Katrina New Orleans.