Sunken Boats, Tangled Nets, and Disrupted Lives: Impacts of Hurricane Katrina on Two Coastal Areas of Louisiana

摘要

On 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore devastating coastal communities in the northern Gulf of Mexico. This paper examines the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on two fishing communities in Louisiana: Grand Isle and the Empire-Venice area. Bothof these areas were heavily involved in the commercial fishing industry before the hurricane hit. Empire-Venice is one of the top commercial fishing ports by volume of landings in the country. As the storm crossed the wetlands south of New Orleans, boatswere sunk, houses and businesses were destroyed, and lives were changed, in some cases, perhaps, forever. After a natural disaster, it is important to examine impacts not only on the physical and biological environments, but also on the human communities located within those environments. The author conducted ethnographic research with fishermen and people who work in fishing-related businesses in both of these communities in 2004, the year before Hurricane Katrina landed. This provided valuable baseline information for comparison when the author returned in 2006. A year after the hurricane, both communities were still struggling to recover from the storm. Grand Isle was recovering at a faster rate than the Empire-Venice area, which still looked likethe storm had struck yesterday. This paper will describe some of the challenges of living in vulnerable areas of coastal Louisiana as well as explore the differences that underlie the rebuilding of these communities and the potential for recovery. Additionally, lessons learned for conducting research in fishing communities that have been devastated by natural disasters will be discussed.