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Through this thesis, we want to discuss how the marginalization of people, several precedent political, city planning- and engineering decisions resulted in a catastrophic outcome after hurricane Katrina in New Orleans 2005. We also put forward a case study of the Make It Right Foundation, to demonstrate how the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward are involved in the urban development of their community. We would like to draw attention to the power of citizens and how they can influence the urban development of a community after a trauma. This study also focuses on the mission of The Make It Right Foundation: which is to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward with firm concepts on sustainable development where all dimensions are accounted: ecological, social, cultural and economic.The empirical data was collected by a field study in New Orleans 2010-03-22 and semistructured interviews were made during the same days.

Meta-synthesis is an approach to synthesize qualitative research results. Originally proposed in the medical field and in education, this approach helps to advance current knowledge by generating a new interpretive synthesis. Since current research practices and knowledge development in emergency management is excessively divergent, there has been a need for a synthesis of knowledge from practice and research. One of the main arguments of this study is that the need is met by this study of a meta-synthesis. In this research, I suggested that many research results dealing with the issue of how to improve the performance of emergency management can be integrated into strategies for network management in emergencies. I used the term strategies in a much more generalized way to capture the idea of managerial/behavioral skills, plans, and insights for emergency management. The meta-synthesis was conducted from a keyword search, surveys, and expert interviews, which identified representative studies in emergency response. The review process of the representative studies is captured in a two-by-two matrix (intervention point axis and planning-improvisation axis) as a way of presenting the meta-synthesis results. This study then, turned to an analysis of reports of the Hurricane Katrina response using the meta-synthesis results. Qualitative content analysis was used as a method for the analysis. Reports from the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate are the target documents of the analysis. While conducting the analysis, I argued that the attempt of interpreting the failures of Katrina response into the failures of network management strategies provides clearer understandings regarding what went wrong and what was lacking. Furthermore, I argued that the way of thinking attempted in the analysis is a constructive one in that it provides an instructive action agenda for future disasters by connecting lessons learned to the strategies for emergency management. / Ph. D.

This thesis brings forth the regional architecture of New Orleans, Louisiana, and applies it directly towards the reconstruction and reconstitution of the Lafitte Housing Project closed as a result of Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005. The half-mile long Lafitte Housing Project rests just outside the French Quarter in the Sixth Ward. This thesis proposes reopening the canal along Jefferson Davis Parkway and extending it into the French Quarter to the southern edge of Louis Armstrong Park. As many of the former apartments were damaged by flooding from Hurricane Katrina, some units will be demolished to make way for site changes. A problematic condition of the former public housing complex was the way that it stood within the site as a massive homogenous entity, far out of scale to the surrounding urban fabric. The solution to rebuilding the site is not to construct another massive housing community. Rather, this proposal would include restoring many of the existing units, providing a historic anchor to the new neighborhood, and allowing them to remain along with new construction. Earth removed from the canal will stay on the site and be used to construct a half-mile long mound, running most of the length of the projects. This mounded area will feature spaces for recreational activities, Marti Gras celebrations, relaxation, and it will allow bridged access to the second floors of the new buildings. More important than what the mound does, is what it is: a metaphor for rising up from the mud and water and towards an elevated way of living, for inhabitants of the new and old structures. The vehicle for the form and structure of the new dwelling units is the historic Foursquare house. A house that symbolizes aristocracy and well-being, these new units are a refinement of the two bedroom apartments in the existing public housing complex. In this proposal, both will coexist throughout the site. / Master of Architecture

[pt] Estimulado pela percepção de um crescente uso do termo “resiliência” em documentos oficiais, em ambientes acadêmicos e no vocabulário popular, o presente trabalho procura explorar as condições para a propagação do termo, assim como as consequências de seu uso em políticas públicas. O conceito, popularizado no contexto da disciplina da biologia, foi transportado para as ciências sociais a partir de uma aproximação entre as racionalidades da ecologia e da economia. Este movimento de aproximação resultou em uma nova concepção do mundo social como complexo, permeado por toda sorte de riscos, e habitado por sujeitos fundamentalmente vulneráveis. A ampla mobilização do conceito na Nova Agenda Urbana, principal documento da ONU-Habitat para a formulação de políticas urbanas, demonstra o grau de legitimidade conquistado pela ideia de resiliência urbana. Para melhor entendermos como esta ideia é invocada na prática, analisaremos seu uso nos contextos do Furacão Katrina, quando atingiu o sul dos Estados Unidos, em 2005, e no rompimento da barragem da Samarco em Mariana, ocorrido em 2015 em Minas Gerais. / [en] Encouraged by the perception of a growing use of the term resilience on official documents, in academic environments and in the popular vocabulary, the present work aims to explore the conditions for the dissemination of the term, as well as the consequences of its use in public policy discourses. The concept, which was popularized in the context of the biological sciences, was transported to the social sciences through a theoretical convergence between the rationalities of ecology and economy. This movement resulted on a new conception of the social world, in which it is conceived as complex, permeated by all sorts of risks, and populated by fundamentally vulnerable subjects. The wide employment of the concept by the New Urban Agenda, UN-Habitat s main document for urban policy formulation, demonstrates the degree of legitimacy that was conquered by the idea of an urban resilience. In order for us to better understand how the idea is evoked in practice, we will analyze its use in the contexts of Hurricane Katrina, when it hit the South of the United States, in 2005, and in the context of Samarco s dam rupture in Mariana, which took place in 2015, in Minas Gerais.

Catastrophes like Katrina destroy a community's critical infrastructure-a situation that instigates several dilemmas. Immediately, the community experiences information disruption within the community, as well as between the community and the outside world. The inability to communicate because of physical or virtual barriers to information instigates instant isolation. Prolonged, this scarcity of information becomes an information poverty spell, placing hardship on a community accustomed to easily accessible and applicable information. Physical devastation causes the scarcity of what Abraham Maslow calls basic survival needs-physiological, security, and social-a needs regression from the need to self-actualize, to meet intellectual and aesthetic needs. Because needs regress, the type of information required to meet the needs, also changes-regresses to information regarding survival needs. Regressed information needs requires altered information behaviors-altered methods and means to meet the information needs of the post-disaster situation. Situational information behavior follows new mores-altered norms-norms constructed for the post-disaster situation. To justify the unconventional, situational social norms, residents must adjust their beliefs about appropriate behavior. Situational beliefs support situational social norms-and situational information behaviors prevail. Residents find they must trust strangers, create makeshift messaging systems, and in some cases, disregard the law to meet their post-disaster survival needs.

In this study, the role of positive and negative religious coping was evaluated for their interrelationship with demographic variables, religious variables, and the outcome of mental health distress. A sample of 253 United Methodist Church leaders from counties throughout the state of Mississippi completed a survey including measures for demographic characteristics, religious coping, general coping, and mental health distress. Through regression analysis and path analysis, the relationships among the variables were measured to determine the importance of religious coping strategies while controlling for demographic variables and general forms of coping. Through regression analysis, the subjective report of personal losses immediately after Hurricane Katrina, participation in religious activities, and involvement in recovery efforts significantly predicted the presence of mental health distress among United Methodist Church leaders in Mississippi. In particular, religious participation insulated against the presence of mental health distress while personal losses and recovery involvement promoted the likelihood of mental health distress. Positive forms of general coping as well as religious forms of coping provided no significant contribution to the presence or absence of mental health distress, but negative forms of general coping did predict higher levels of mental health distress. Among this religiously oriented sample, religious forms of coping was not significantly predictive of the presence of mental health distress after accounting for general forms of coping which suggested that religious coping may be indistinguishable from forms of coping that are more generalized in nature. Through path analysis, negative religious coping significantly influenced the increased presence of mental health distress but did not serve as a mediator between mental health distress and other religious and demographic variables. A surprising finding in this study was the important mediating role of recovery involvement between mental health distress and other factors including religious participation, religious salience, and status as an ordained minister. Additionally, at nearly three years after the storm, persons reporting to currently live in close proximity to the disaster and persons continuing to experience loss due to the disaster reported a higher prevalence of mental health distress. Implications for the current literature and the need for further research were discussed.

Master of Science / Department of Statistics / John E. Boyer Jr / The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the methods used for allocating disaster funds to assist commercial fishery participants as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005 and to examine alternative methods to aid in determining an efficient criterion for allocating public funds for fisheries assistance. The trip ticket data managed by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries were used and analyzed using a cluster analysis. Results from the clustering procedures show that commercial fishermen consist of seven clusters, while wholesale/retail seafood dealers consist of six clusters. The three tiers into which commercial fishermen were originally classified can be extended to at least eleven (11) clusters, made up of three (3) clusters in tier 1 and an equal number of clusters (4) clusters in tier 2 and tier 3. Similarly, the original three tiers of wholesale/retail seafood dealers can be reclassified into at least nine (9) clusters with two clusters in tier 1, four (4) clusters in tier 2 and three (3) clusters in tier 3. As a result of the clustering reclassifications, alternative compensation plans were developed for the commercial fishermen and wholesale/retail seafood dealers. These alternative compensation plans suggest a reallocation of disaster assistance funds among individual groups of fishermen and among individual groups of dealers. We finally recommend that alternative classification methods should always be considered in order to select the most efficient criterion for allocating public funds in the future.

The following thesis examines the development of the Louisiana Superdome from a concept that created division amongst the people of Louisiana, including those in the New Orleans metropolitan area, to a facility that would serve as, "a symbol of our recovery". This thesis begins with the fanfare and euphoria from the reopening of the Superdome in September 2006 following millions of dollars worth of damage from Hurricane Katrina and from those using it as a "shelter of last resort". It then introduces some of the major players in the Superdome's development from a divisive concept into a symbol of the community. This thesis examines the factors in the evolution of the meaning of the Superdome for those in the surrounding communities. The factors include political ideology, economic conditions, race relations, and entertainment.