Hurricane Katrina and the Forgotten Coast of Mississippi

HURRICANE KATRINA AND THE FORGOTTEN COAST OF MISSISSIPPI. By Susan L. Cutter, Christopher T. Emrich, Jerry T. Mitchell, Walter W. Piegorsch, Mark M. Smith, and Lynn Weber, xiv and 194 pp.; maps, diagrs., ills., notes, index; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. $120.00 (cloth), ISBN 9781107023949. As the book title indicates, Hurricane Katrina and the Forgotten Coast of Mississippi examines the social and economic consequences of Hurricane Katrina upon Mississippi coastal communities to understand different outcomes to the recovery effort. The authors provide a well-written and thorough assessment of recovery through geographic data on social, built-environment, and hazard vulnerabilities; the history of the Mississippi Gulf Coast as it relates to disasters and social difference; statistical analysis of settlement and demographic change on the coast; and trajectory predictions of settlement and demographic change. Mississippi, despite the significant damage that the coast received from Hurricane Katrina, did not receive adequate attention from the media nor academic researchers. As the authors argue, the Mississippi coast has a unique historical background and social and economic trajectory. Blanket theories of impact, recovery, or forecasted trajectories are not sufficient for understanding "the forgotten coast of Mississippi." The authors address this gap in the literature. The book starts at a very logical point for disaster literature: defining recovery. The authors set out to define recovery and, more importantly, they seek to explain differences in recovery as they relate to the physical landscape of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, as well as different rates of social and economic recovery. They present a multidisciplinary assessment of the social and economic processes producing unequal recovery. After recovery and its measures are addressed, the authors examine the history of hurricanes and their impact on the Mississippi coast while addressing the disparate levels of damage. The authors introduce "Katrina fatigue" as the exhaustion of frontline recovery workers, including nonprofits, which occurred within two to three years of the storm (p. 106). Using qualitative and quantitative data on past and current recovery efforts, the authors forecast the trajectory that recovery from Hurricane Katrina that will continue on the Mississippi coast, as well as the ability of the coast to absorb and respond to inevitable future disasters. Recovery is not easily defined or measured. As disaster impacts fall into areas addressed by multiple disciplines, single variable measures of recovery are simply inadequate. The authors are to be applauded on their efforts to take a multidisciplinary, as well as a normative, approach to recovery. Disaster resilience and recovery literature is often satisfied with answering questions about the way things were, the way things are, and the delta between, while ignoring how things ought to be. The authors address recovery for whom, recovery of what, and recovery to what end in their assessment of Mississippi's Hurricane Katrina story. They consider the interaction of the differential impact of the hurricane, as well as the social vulnerabilities. Recovery inequities are handled not just at the county level as the authors seek to provide insight into why certain communities may be lagging or leading the way in recovery. The emphasis that the authors place on power and its role in processes producing unequal recovery is essential to understanding Mississippi and it's response to disasters. …