Kathleen J. Tierney

Metaphors Matter: Disaster Myths, Media Frames, and Their Consequences in Hurricane Katrina

It has long been understood by disaster researchers that both the general public and organizational actors tend to believe in various disaster myths. Notions that disasters are accompanied by looting, social disorganization, and deviant behavior are examples of such myths. Research shows that the mass media play a significant role in promulgating erroneous beliefs about disaster behavior. Following Hurricane Katrina, the response of disaster victims was framed by the media in ways that greatly exaggerated the incidence and severity of looting and lawlessness. Media reports initially employed a “civil unrest” frame and later characterized victim behavior as equivalent to urban warfare. The media emphasis on lawlessness and the need for strict social control both reflects and reinforces political discourse calling for a greater role for the military in disaster management. Such policy positions are indicators of the strength of militarism as an ideology in the United States.

Toward a Critical Sociology of Risk

Sociologists are growing increasingly skeptical toward research on risk conducted in other fields, and new perspectives on risk are emerging. Topics that merit further exploration include the social construction of risk and risk objects, risk analysis as a type of scientific enterprise, the organizational and institutional forces that shape positions on risk, safety and risk as dynamic properties of social systems, and the social forces that create and allocate risk. In particular, sociologists need to place more emphasis on exploring the roles played by organizations and the state in hazard production and on formulating a political economy of risk. To a significantly greater degree than other disciplines concerned with risk, sociology emphasizes the contextual factors that structure vulnerability to hazards and the linkages that exist between vulnerability and social power.

Business Impacts of the Northridge Earthquake

The Northridge earthquake of 17 January 1994, killed 57 people and injured an estimated 10,000 persons. The earthquake is the most costly disaster in U.S. history, in terms of dollar loss; costs continue to rise as more damage is uncovered, repairs are made, and disaster-related claims are paid out. Recently-issued government estimates place the losses due to direct earthquake damage at approximately

THE BATTERED WOMEN MOVEMENT AND THE CREATION OF THE WIFE BEATING PROBLEM

25 billion (Governors Office of Emergency Services and Federal Emergency Management Agency, 1996), and researchers who are tracking Northridge-related losses believe ‘it is quite possible that total losses, excluding indirect effects, could reach as much as

Predicting Long-Term Business Recovery from Disaster: A Comparison of the Loma Prieta Earthquake and Hurricane Andrew

40 billion’ (Eguchi, et al, 1996) The number of households and businesses that were affected by the earthquake far exceeded the size of the victim population in other recent major disasters in the U.S., including Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the assistance effort that was launched was the largest ever undertaken for a U.S. disaster. By the end of 1995, 681,710 applications for state and federal assistance had been received, which was more than double the amount filed for any other single disaster event (Governers Office of Emergency Services and Federal Emergency Management Agency, 1996). Applications for the housing assistance programs operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency totalled well over half a million, and nearly 200,000 households applied to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) for loans to rebuild or repair their homes. Additionally, approximately 39,000 businesses applied to the Small Business Administration for disaster loans (EQE International, 1995). This paper focuses on the immediate and longer-term impacts the earthquake had on businesses in the Greater Los Angeles region. The data reported here are based on a survey that the Disaster Research Center, at the University of Delaware, conducted with a representative, randomly-selected sample of businesses in the cities of Los Angeles and Santa Monica, two jurisdictions that were particularly hard-hit by the earthquake. The material presented here is primarily descriptive. The goal of this paper is not to develop or test complex analytic models, although the paper does refer to other more quantitative analyses that have been performed on these data. Rather, the objective is to outline for readers empirical findings on the various ways that the earthquake affected the operations and viability of businesses on the impact area. Few studies exist that document the range of impacts that disasters can have on businesses and business sectors, and even fewer are based on detailed data from large representative samples. The paper addresses the following research questions: (1) What direct impacts and losses did businesses experience in the earthquake? (2) In what ways did the earthquake affect the operations of the businesses studied? If they experienced business interruption, why were they forced to close? What other kinds of problems did business have to cope with following the earthquake? (3) What earthquake preparedness measures had businesses undertaken prior to the disaster, and what have they done subsequently to prepare? and (4) To what extent have business operations returned to pre-earthquake levels, and which businesses appear to be experiencing the most difficulty with recovery?

Disasters, Collective Behavior, and Social Organization.

Wife beating has become the object of media attention and government policy, not because of an increase in its frequency, or because the public has become more concerned, but because a social movement developed in the 1970s to help battered women. The growth of the battered women movement illustrates both successful resource mobilization and the creation of a social problem. Pre-existing organizational ties, structural and ideological flexibility, and, in particular, the benefits sponsors gain by supporting movement activities account for the movements rapid growth and impact. At the same time, increasing co-optation is affecting both how wife beating is defined and managed, and the course of the movement itself.

Rebounding from disruptive events: Business recovery following the Northridge earthquake

Although in recent years social scientists have paid increasing attention to the impacts of disasters on the private sector, little is currently known about how disasters affect the long-term economic viability of businesses. Most studies of disaster recovery have taken either households or entire communities as the unit of analysis (Bolin 1982; Bolin and Bolton 1986; Rubin 1981; Rubin, Saperstein, and Barbee 1985), and those that have looked at the economic impacts of disasters tend to focus on large levels of aggregation, such as regional economies, rather than on individual firms (Albala-Bertrand 1993; Cohen 1993; 1995; Friesema et al. 1979; Rossi et al. 1978; West and Lenze 1994). When researchers have studied how disasters affect individual businesses and economic activity, they have generally focused on short-term impacts, rather than the longer-term consequences of disaster victimization (Alesch et al. 1993; Gordon et al. 1995). Thus, it is not currently known whether disasters have any discernible longer-term consequences for individual businesses.

Businesses and Disasters: Vulnerability, Impacts, and Recovery

The twenty-eight authors included in this collection share an interest in the patterns of crowd actions, social movements, and social behavior in the wake of disasters and seek to advance the field of collective behavior.

Recent Developments in U.S. Homeland Security Policies and Their Implications for the Management of Extreme Events

Although the long‐term effects of disasters and the factors that affect the ability to recover have received increasing attention from social science researchers, little systematic research has been conducted on the processes and outcomes associated with business disaster recovery. This article attempts to fill that void by exploring the determinants of recovery within the private sector. We develop a model of business recovery by drawing from existing research on disaster recovery and on organizational survival in nondisaster contexts and test it by using data collected from a stratified random sample of 1,110 Los Angeles area firms affected by the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Business size, disruption of business operations due to the earthquake, earthquake shaking intensity, and the utilization of external postdisaster aid are all predictors of business recovery. Size helps businesses weather disaster losses, just as it proves advantageous in nondisaster contexts. How businesses fare following disasters...

Which community mental health services are most important

As units of analysis in disaster research, businesses have only recently begun to be studied. Far more research has been conducted on public sector organizations such as local emergency management agencies, public safety agencies, and other governmental organizations. Researchers studying the economic impacts of disasters have tended to focus on units of analysis that are larger than individual firms and enterprises, such as community and regional economies. Until fairly recently, very little was known regarding such topics as business vulnerability, loss-reduction measures adopted by businesses, disaster impacts on businesses, and business recovery. Systematic research was lacking despite the singular importance of businesses for society. Private businesses provide a vast array of goods and services that literally make life possible in our complex global economy. A recent governmental report on the U.S. critical infrastructure points out that “[t]he lion’s share of our critical infrastructures and key assets are owned and operated by the private sector” (White House, 2003, p. 32)1. Businesses are the foundation of local, regional, and national economies; when businesses are affected by disasters, that disruption produces not only direct business losses, but also indirect losses and economic ripple effects. Destruction of and damage to businesses, along with disaster-related closures, result in the loss of jobs, negatively affecting incomes and creating even greater challenges for households, neighborhoods, and communities as they attempt to recover from disasters. After disasters, business owners face a host of challenges, including how to finance business recovery, and often how to cope simultaneously with damage to both business and residential property. Disasters can produce both psychological distress and additional debt burdens for business owners. At the community level, business destruction and damage can result in lost tax revenues for communities and can undermine the viability of business and commercial districts.