A natural disaster and the community rebuilding process: Roles of invisible assets.

摘要

This study examined the role of invisible assets in the community rebuilding process after a major natural disaster. A four-level self-administered survey to survivors and semi-structured interviews with key informants were adopted for this study. Data were collected in Princeville, North Carolina, which was completely inundated by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Independent variables in the quantitative study are called intangible community assets which include local leadership, psychological experiences with a natural disaster, and community cohesion. One overarching dependant variable was the perceptual rebuilding of community members consisting of the emotional and financial rebuilding of the community members.;For the quantitative method, only 127 valid responses among 147 returned questionnaires were used for data analyses. Demographic information of the respondents was not much different from that of US Census 2000, except their current income level. The level of the community cohesion in the target community was moderately high (M = 3.45, SD = .74) on Buckner's 18-item community cohesion scale. More than half of the respondents experienced depression in the aftermath of the hurricane (The 15-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression, M = 18.94, SD = 11.78). The respondents' overall evaluation of their leaders in the aftermath of the disaster was not positive. The mean of the current emotional status of all questions was 2.73 on the Emotional Assessment Scale which shows that the respondents are in good emotional condition overall at the moment of this research. Surprisingly, 41.7% of the respondents expressed that they never financially recovered even five years after the hurricane. A hierarchical entry regression analyses indicate that depression right after the disaster accounts for 34% of variances in the survivors' current emotional status (p < .001). Among various aspects of leadership, only the leaders' ability to mobilize needed resources is significantly and negatively associated with the respondents' financial recovery time. There is a statistically significant relationship between depression and financial recovery (Rho = .327, p = .000). Analyses of both qualitative and quantitative methods indicated that the most valuable asset of the community was its symbolic meaning of being the first African American chartered town in the United States.