Community Crisis Recovery and Renewal in the New Media Environment: How Facebook Groups Initiated Crisis Responses After the Louisiana Flood of 2016

Crisis communication research is an important and growing field, especially given the increasing frequency and scale of crises. Yet, most crisis communication research has been concerned with organizational responses to crisis and issues of image repair. An alternative approach to crisis emphasizes opportunities for growth and renewal after a crisis. Crisis communication as it pertains to communities has not been adequately addressed. This study examined community crisis responses and crisis renewal in the Facebook groups that formed after the 2016 flooding in Louisiana. This study presents how these groups used social media to encourage and facilitate crisis recovery and renewal. This study extends crisis communication research to a communitybased event and illustrates how crisis renewal may occur using social media technologies. COMMUNITY CRISIS RESPONSES TO LOUISIANA FLOOD 3 Community Crisis Recovery and Renewal in the New Media Environment: How Facebook Groups Initiated Crisis Responses After the Louisiana Flood of 2016 Between August 11 and August 14, 2016, more than 20 inches of rain fell in southeast Louisiana. Roads turned into rivers, interstates flooded and businesses and homes became submerged as the rain continued to fall. According to the National Weather Service, the severe flooding that affected Louisiana should statistically occur only once in a thousand years. The disastrous storm began in the same geographical area where hurricanes form, but never became a hurricane. Despite the significance and destruction, there was little media coverage, likely because of a few factors. Without a name or category distinction, the storm and its destruction were not widely covered by the national news outlets (Hersher, 2016). Media focused on covering the upcoming presidential election and the 2016 summer Olympics, which resulted in a widespread lack of awareness of the devastation (Pallota, 2016). Local weather services issued warnings and advisories, but evacuations did not commence until after the most intense rainfall began. As a result of the flooding, 13 people died and more than 100,000 homes were damaged (Hersher, 2016). Communication before, during and after an event such as a devastating flood is an important part of response and recovery, making it an important topic of study for public relations research. Effective communication among government and organizational leaders and community members can limit damages, save lives and utilize opportunities during recovery to build a better community after the crisis. Almost immediately after the flooding began, volunteer groups of community members formed to rescue people trapped in the flooding and assist in recovery and rebuilding. State rescue personnel, the Louisiana National Guard and the United States Coast Guard mobilized to rescue people using high-water vehicles, helicopters and boats (Gutierrez, Vinograd & COMMUNITY CRISIS RESPONSES TO LOUISIANA FLOOD 4 Fieldstadt, 2016), but calls for rescue outnumbered what authorities could respond to. Citizen volunteers in fleets of flat-bottomed boats headed into the flood water to collect stranded residents. The “Cajun Navy” responded to rescue requests on Facebook and used mobile communication apps to coordinate rescues (Morris, 2016). The “Cajun Army” provided assistance on the ground, helping residents gut and rebuild homes (Hunter, 2016a). This historic flooding event demonstrates community-initiated crisis responses that contributed to recovery, rebuilding and renewal of devastated parts of Louisiana. Crises, according to the academic literature, are “non-routine events in societies or their larger subsystem that involve social disruption and physical harm” (Seeger & Griffin-Padgett, 2010, p. 128). Crises typically involve high levels of uncertainty, severe threats to goals and values, and a short time in which to respond. High levels of uncertainty create an intense need for information in a time when communication technologies may be non-functional. After crises occur, the public often call on officials and spokespeople to explain how the crisis happened or what caused the crisis and questions of responsibility and blame arise. Even when there is not an organization at fault for the crisis, such as in the case of natural disasters, publics blame organizations for failed response efforts or delays in recovery (Seeger & Sellnow, 2016). For example, after Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, publics criticized local, state and federal governments for their responses to the disaster. The storm’s large death toll bas been blamed on ineffective leadership, delayed disaster responses and miscommunication (Hsu, 2006). Crisis communication research has predominately been interested in studying the strategies used to answer blame accusations and repair organizational image and reputation after a crisis event. The communication strategies suggested by these theories include denial, COMMUNITY CRISIS RESPONSES TO LOUISIANA FLOOD 5 counterattack, evasiveness and apology (Seeger & Griffin-Padgett 2010). These strategies recommend retrospective responses and communication may result in controversy or tension (Seeger & Sellnow, 2016). Renewal is an alternative approach to image repair-focused crisis communication theories. Crisis renewal research goes beyond image restoration to study the ways strategic communication can contribute to recovery, rebuilding and growth after crises (Ulmer, Seeger & Sellnow, 2007, p. 319). Characteristics of renewal identified in research and case studies include strong community and organizational values, community and stakeholder relationships, and an attention to the needs that emerge in the wake of a crisis (Seeger & Griffin-Padgett 2010). Renewal can be defined as a new sense of purpose and direction discovered after a crisis (Ulmer, Sellnow & Seeger, 2009). Instead of focusing on mitigating threats and managing responsibility and blame, crisis renewal identifies new opportunities organizations and communities have to rebuild and grow after a crisis. Crisis renewal was first identified in organizational crisis communication research. It has been applied to case studies of private companies rebuilding after industrial accidents, responding to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, and the recovery of American organizations after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. More recently, crisis renewal has been expanded to cases of community crisis recovery (Seeger & Griffin-Padgett, 2010). Research on this optimistic crisis approach has primarily explored management responses to crises and has not been extensively applied in the new media environment (Liu & Fraustino, 2014). New media refers to communication via digital technologies, such as social media. Social media have potential to facilitate multi-vocal responses from organizations and publics and creates new opportunities for recovery and renewal after crisis (Liu & Fraustino, 2014). For this COMMUNITY CRISIS RESPONSES TO LOUISIANA FLOOD 6 study, social media are defined as interactive digital or mobile tools that allow users to access, create and influence content. These tools offer two-way communication capabilities and a forum for dialogue and content exchange. During crisis situations, social media may be used for rapid information seeking and sharing and result in positive outcomes, such as support for organizations in crises (Liu, Fraustino, & Jin, 2016). Despite the potential social media hold as tools for positive crisis outcomes, research has not yet addressed how social media function in cases of community renewal after a crisis. This purpose of this study is to address the aforementioned research gap and provide insights into how social media may be used to facilitate crisis recovery and promote a more optimistic response to crisis. Analyzing crisis communication in the new media environment using the lens of renewal could provide insight into how social media may be used to facilitate crisis recovery and promote a more optimistic response to crisis. Previous research on crisis, as well as research on social media, has mainly focused on the organization’s communications as opposed to the audience or community’s crisis response and communication. This study provides a new perspective to crisis communication research by examining crisis communication and recovery on the community level. Specifically, this study will examine the volunteer groups, the Cajun Navy and Cajun Army, that formed after the Louisiana flooding and how they may have contributed to crisis renewal using social media tools. Through a case study analysis of the volunteer group’s social media posts and community news coverage of the “Great Flood of 2016,” this study seeks to answer the following questions: (1) what elements of renewal can be found in community news coverage of the Louisiana event? ; (2) how did community crisis communication via social media contribute to recovery and renewal in Louisiana? ; and (3) what elements of renewal can be identified in the community response to the Louisiana flooding? COMMUNITY CRISIS RESPONSES TO LOUISIANA FLOOD 7