Hurricane Katrina- 10 years on academic research links

It is the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina which hit the USA in 2005.

New Orleans Advocate has a 10 years feature which includes assessments of the impact and  first hand accounts from survivors.

Guardian news stories - 10 years after

Time Magazine video essay

The devastation was such that the National Hurricane Centre estimated

1833 deaths and  $108 billion in damages from the events.

£0 oil platforms were damaged and initial reports on production showed in the first 6 months after the disaster significant declines in oil and gas production 

The city of New Orleans need to engage in an extensive rebuilding and regeneration programme . The Katrina10 website provides details and data about this. Standards and Poors ratings offer insight into the nature of debt incurred by the city.

The United States Geological survey has created a case study website which has photographs and images of the coastal and environmental impact on the landscape of the region. NASA image archive also offers satellite images of the progress of the hurricane.

The government response provoked criticism and a congressional investigation occurred. Its final report : a failure of initiative criticises the preparations and the response. in 2005 a subsequent report covered the lessons learnt. Other reviews were conducted by the US GAO on the Coastguard operations

A CNN poll at the time concluded that most American believed the city would never recover.

of course a major impact was on the lives of individuals.

The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and the University of New Orleans created the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (HDMB). This provides free access to over 25,000 online items include photographs and oral histories.

The Resilience in Survivors of Katrina Project (“RISK”)Project. is a longitudinal study of over 1,000 low-income parents who lived in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina.Topics covered include child development post traumatic stress and psychological impact. The website has case studies and papers. It also links to other related publications. Not all survivors have been found to have suffered negatively in the long term.
Interestingly in a 2014 study which investigated pre-to post-disaster changes in happiness of 491

women affected by Hurricane Katrina it was found that the impact of unhappiness lasted 12 months as after 4 years there was no significant difference in happiness between pre and post disaster assessments.

A NBER working paper from 2014 which analyses survivors tax returns also recorded that for many changes in income were transitional if initial economic aid and support was provided. 

Five years after the events- a Children's Health Fund report found evidence of continuing emotional instability and problems amongst children 

Further research.

Items on Hurricane Katrina (sociology, town planning, political economy and race) from LSE Library
LSE staff and students can search for articles on SocIndex, Scopus, Web of Science,
Psycinfo