What is a disaster?

A disaster, by definition, is a serious disruption in the function of a community and has

environmental, economic, and human losses on a large scale to the point that the community
itself can no longer cope with the disaster using its own resources. A disaster can be completely
natural in the case of earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides, floods and more which can’t be
controlled very well and usually lead to a lot of damage.
But disasters can also be man-made like plane crashes or terrorism or industrial accidents and
those can usually be far better contained or preventive measures can be taken to minimize
impact. Usually under developed or developing countries are worst hit by disasters in terms of
long lasting damage.
Example – Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina still is the costliest natural disaster in United States history and the sixth
strongest recorded Altantic hurricane in history. It all started as a low-pressure weather system
that slowly became into a tropical storm as it gained strength and moved to the west into the
Florida coast on 25th August 2005. As it swept through southern Florida, it left more than
100,000 homes without power and gained even more strength as it then headed towards
Louisiana around 29th August.
This was the point when Katrina became a serious threat as it was now sustaining a wind speed
of 200 kilometers per hour approximately. While passing through New Orleans, it destroyed
lighter buildings and caused huge damage to the stronger ones nevertheless. Destruction and
flooding were caused in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and more as it lead for the sea to
create a storm that flooded inland.
In terms of its impact, Katrina cost $105 billion in repairs and reconstruction of all the damage it
cost, not including the disruption to oil supply and other indirect costs. It led to the closure of
nine refineries and damage of 30 oil platforms, while 1.3 million acres of forest land was
destroyed and cost $5 billion alone. Before the hurricane hit New Orleans, the region had
almost a million non-farm jobs so the total economic impact in that region was huge.
It also redistributed over one million people from the central Gulf coast elsewhere across the
United States and led to a lot of trauma as well as racial tensions since a lot of the victims were
African American. It caused beach erosion and 217 square miles of land was converted to water
by the hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It also caused numerous oil spills which led to over 7 million
gallons of oil leaking.
Emergency, Disaster or Catastrophe?
Emergency is defined by being a local event that disrupts only a portion of a community and not
the community at large, without actually disrupting the day to day life. Examples of this would
be a highway collapse or pile-up. This is clearly not even close to being the same as Hurricane
Katrina, so now the question becomes whether Katrina is a disaster of a catastrophe.
One of the biggest differences between a disaster and a catastrophe is that most of the
community structures get heavily impacted in a catastrophe. With Hurricane Katrina, the heavy
damage in New Orleans and on the Mississippi coast was of a catastrophic nature with 80% of
the city being flooded and because of that many key work places were no longer operational
and even buildings that withstood the damage couldn’t operate because of the flooding.
Another difference is that in a catastrophe, local officials are unable to do their usual work and
it’s hard for recovery to reach the needy during the time. This holds true for Katrina as many
welfare agencies and the police force itself in various cities weren’t able to fully operate and
were impacted themselves. Lastly, the lives of everyone and the community at large are
severely disrupted in the case of a catastrophe and this is also true with Katrina as the entire
community came to a halt while recover began including the law enforcement agencies, jobs of
different affected individuals and their businesses as well as education which was majorly
impacted for months.
Looking all all of the above distinctions, it’s clear that Hurricane Katrina checks all the boxes of a
catastrophe and is historically something the entire US had to come together to heal from and
rebuild.
Conclusion
Hurricane Katrina led to massive fundraises by the entire world to rebuild and effects of it are
still present in the affected area today.
References
Ron Perry. “What is a disaster?” In H. Rodriguez, E. Quarantelli and R. Dynes (eds.) Handbook of
Disaster Research. To be published by Springer in 2006.
Ron Perry & E.L. Quarantelli (eds.) “What Is a Disaster?” New Answers to Old Questions.
Philadelphia: Xlibris Books. 2005.
Joseph Scanlon. Convergence Revisited: A New Perspective on a Little Studied Topic. Ottawa,
Canada: Emergency Communications Research Unit, Carleton University. 1991.