Natural Hazards Observer
| January 2006 | Volume XXX | Number 3 |
Focus on Hurricane Katrina
The Paradox of Social Capital as a
Liability in Disaster Management:
Understanding the
Evacuation
Failure
of Hurricane Katrina
As I drove around my hometown in Southern California, I listened intently to the radio newscaster’s words: “category five hurricane . . . mandatory evacuation . . . breech in the levees.” I imagined the citizens of New Orleans fleeing their homes in the face of such clear warnings of imminent danger. However, as the disaster unfolded, the nation was horrified to learn that a significant number of the citizens of New Orleans did not leave the city, and that many people had been trapped in their homes without the physical or financial resources to evacuate.(1)
Ten days later, as part of a research project, I found myself talking with Katrina evacuees living in the Houston Astrodome. I expected each one to tell me what I had heard on the radio—that he wanted to leave but did not have the means to do so. I was very surprised to hear from many people that they did have access to a car and enough money to leave but had consciously decided not to evacuate.
My initial reaction was disbelief. What could motivate someone to make such a seemingly unreasonable choice? Did they not hear the same warnings that had been coming from my radio? However, as I listened to their stories, I began to see the situation through their eyes and realized that staying in New Orleans was, to them, a very reasonable choice.
Imagine yourself as a single parent of three children, working forty hours a week at two part-time jobs and receiving just over a thousand dollars per month in income without benefits. You are able to make ends meet because you live with your mother and grandmother. Your grandmother has some health problems and has trouble getting around, so you help take care of her, too. With everything you have to do to hold it all together, you do not hear about the approaching hurricane until two days before it is predicted to arrive.
Over dinner you talk about the approaching storm. You mention that the news is saying that people should evacuate. Your mother says, “that’s nothing new.” It seems that every year or so a storm is predicted to be bad, and everyone is told to evacuate; then it turns at the last minute and everything is fine. Your grandmother says she has never evacuated for a storm in her life, including 1965’s Hurricane Betsy, and she is not about to start now. She has lived in this house for 50 years and has never seen more than a little water come in the door—nothing that cannot be handled. Anyway, your neighborhood is not known for flooding. You are reassured by your mother and grandmother. Besides, evacuating would mean missing work tomorrow, and you cannot really afford to do that.
The next day, on the way home from work, you stop to get supplies for the storm. That night you are busy cooking up a small feast. The stove will probably be out for a few days, so it is best to prepare food beforehand. You cook extra because your sister and her children are coming to stay with you through the storm. It is in this fashion that your family has been handling these storms for as long as you, your mother, or your grandmother can remember.
The next morning, with the hurricane less than 24 hours from expected landfall, your sister tells you that the newscasters are “trying to scare us” by calling the evacuation “mandatory.” Mandatory? Now it actually does sound serious. Maybe evacuating would be a good idea. So you turn on the television and see the long line of cars stuck on the highway. Not everyone can fit in your car, so you and your sister would have to drive separately. Additionally, your sister does not really want to leave and would have to rely on you for gas money. You do not know anyone outside the city and have only left it a handful of times as an adult. You do not know where to go and the newscaster provides no directions except the order to leave your home. It appears that if you leave, you will be on your own.
You talk over the situation with your mother. She points out that you might get into an even worse situation if you evacuate. A few years ago your neighbor tried to evacuate, spending every nickel she had on gas and food for the road. Then, she got stuck in traffic, and all the hotel rooms that she could afford were full. She rode out the storm with her family in their car. And, it turned out the authorities were wrong; the hurricane missed New Orleans almost entirely. It would have been better for them to have stayed in their house and not wasted all that money.
The newscaster talks about going to the Superdome. Your sister immediately vetoes the idea. She heard that people got stuck in the Superdome for three days during the last hurricane. Then, your grandmother declares, “I’m not going anywhere.” Well, that pretty much settles it. You are worried, but what are you going to do—hop in your car and leave your family behind? Besides, your family does not seem to think it is going to be that bad, and they are probably right. You turn off the television because it is only making you more nervous.
This story is illustrative of those I heard from the evacuees living in the Houston Astrodome. With the clarity of hindsight, the decision seems simple. But these stories made me realize how complex the situation really was. Financial concerns were a part of the problem, but not the entirety. Mixed in to the decisions were issues of shared norms, local cultures and traditions, responsibilities to social networks, and a collective history leading to trusting one’s network rather than the authorities.
These nonfinancial elements are aptly described by the sociological construct of “social capital,” defined by Pierre Bourdieu as the resources that can be derived through one’s social network.(2) The public health community usually thinks of social capital as an important component of health promotion.(3) However, the management literature also points out that there are risks to social capital, namely “overembeddedness.”4 Although the sharing of resources is a key aspect of social capital, it may also lead to the stretching of limited resources so thinly that the group cannot take effective action. Group decision making, with its inherent inefficiencies, replaces that of individuals.(4)
This paradox was previously documented in the disaster literature with the case of the 1997 Canadian Red River flood. In this instance, investigators found that strong social capital resulted in “decentralized decision making,” thereby inhibiting effective and efficient decisions.(5) In what can now be seen as foreshadowing of the current tragedy, the authors noted that this phenomenon “may have had serious negative consequences had the ring dike been breached.”
In addition to the issue of inefficient decision making, another problem of an overembedded social network is that of the individual relying on his network for information and directions rather than listening to external sources, such as the government or other authority figures.(4) This phenomenon was described in Mark Granovetter’s seminal 1973 paper, “The Strength of Weak Ties.”(6) Granovetter categorized social ties as either “strong,” in the case of family and close friends, or “weak,” in the case of casual acquaintances. Although a society may be rich in strong ties, the strength of those ties may actually result in a paucity of weak ties. Having few weak ties results in limiting one’s exposure to the breadth of information that is provided via a broader social network.(7) In the stories told to me by Hurricane Katrina victims, the potentially disastrous effects of lacking these weak ties were vividly illustrated.
In a 2002 World Bank Report, Ben Wisner discussed using the term social capital in a second way: “the extent that . . . CBOs (citizen-based organizations) can provide a bridge between the formal agencies of disaster management in governments and urban dwellers.”(8) As we seek lessons from the evacuation failure of Hurricane Katrina, it is important that we incorporate this view of social capital into our research and policy priorities. By engaging community-based organizations, such as religious institutions and grass roots social groups, we will establish the vitally needed “bridging” ties that will help us reach into the community and exchange information that is needed to prepare for and respond to future disasters.
Kristina M. Cordasco (KCordasco@mednet.ucla.edu)
Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program
University of California, Los Angeles
Assisting with this article were Steven Asch (VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System University of California, Los Angeles and RAND Health), Deborah C. Glik (School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles), David Eisenman (Department of General Internal Medicine and Health Services, University of California, Los Angeles), and Joya F. Golden (VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System).
(1) Colton, C.E. 2005. Why wasn’t New Orleans better prepared? Interview with Craig E. Colton. By Renee Montagne. Morning Edition, National Public Radio September 2, 2005.
(2) Bourdieu P. 1985. The forms of capital. In Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education, ed. J. Richardson. New York: Greenwood.
(3) Lomas J. 1998. Social capital and health: Implications for public health and epidemiology. Social Science and Medicine 47 (9): 1181-88.
(4) Adler P., and S.W. Kwon. 1999. Social capital: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Modified version of paper presented at the 1999 Academy of Management meeting, Chicago.
(5) Buckland J., and M. Rahman. 1999. Community-based disaster management during the 1997 Red River flood in Canada. Disasters 23 (2): 174-91.
(6) Granovetter, M. 1973. The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360-80.
(7) Granovetter, M. 1983. The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited. Sociological Theory 1:201-33.
(8) Wisner, B. 2002. Disaster risk reduction in megacities: Making the most of human and social capital. In Building safer cities: The future of disaster risk, ed. Alcira Kreimer, Margaret Arnold, and Anne Carlin. Washington, DC: The World Bank.