Unnatural Disasters: Thinking about Natural Disasters in a Sociological Way

In the last century, there have been approximately 13 hurricanes to hit the United States’ landfall (Citation). Many of these hurricanes don't only have a social impact, but also have an economic impact on the United States. However, the question is how impactful does a natural disaster have to be to cripple the United States, or can it help improve the economy? One crucial factor in the economy is the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is a common measurement for determining the health of an economy. Unemployment has a negative effect on the economy because it leads to higher payments from state and federal government for unemployment benefits, food assistance, and Medicaid. Not only is the government helping unemployed individuals

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating disaster that has affected many people in New Orleans as well as the surrounding areas. It had a stunning “death toll of 1300 people and damage over $100 billion ”( Davlasheridze 94 ). The communication were taken down hours after Katrina because of the unexpected fast winds and floods that broke down “3 million phone lines and 1,000 cellular towers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.”( Joch ). Because of the millions of phone lines that were battered, contacting the government for help was difficult hours after hurricane Katrina. Not only that, the people of New Orleans underestimated the power of Hurricane Katrina causing many to be “ stranded with no food or water” ( Narrator, “The Storm”,PBS ).

Often, the government responds to natural disasters with thorough preparation and planning. The federal, state, and local levels of government do this in an effort to help reduce injury and property damage as well as ensure the overall safety of the general population. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season saw the costliest and one of the deadliest storms in United States history. This storm was Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina displaced of an estimated 645,000 Louisiana citizens (Cepeda, Valdez, Kaplan, & Hill, 2010). This paper will examine…

The calamitous natural phenomenon known as Hurricane Katrina brought terrible side-effects to lower-class African Americans. A catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina changed the lives of the lower-class African Americans forever because of the devastation from several effects. People today are more prepared for a natural disaster because “Hurricane Katrina was one of the strongest storms to hit the United States coast within the last 100 years” in New Orleans (Brianna Frank). Most of these ramifications of Hurricane Katrina came from the phycological, economic and medical effects due to this natural disaster,

In a World Health Organization publication titled “Environmental Health in Emergencies and Disasters: A Practical Guide, disasters are defined as “events that occur when significant numbers of people are exposed to extreme events to which they are vulnerable, with resulting injury and loss of life, often combined with damage to property and livelihoods” (Wisner & Adams, 2002). These disasters can be natural or man-made; one type of natural disaster are those of hurricanes. Hurricanes are large, powerful storms that can create winds of 74 miles per hour or higher. Swirling winds can cause significant damage to buildings and trees, heavy precipitation can result in severe flooding, and the emergency situations that arise during and after hurricanes can greatly impact the health and well being of many individuals, particularly the vulnerable population of elderly individuals residing in nursing homes (NASA, 2017; Wisner & Adams, 2002).

Race and class identity of various groups of people render a great deal of influence on the experience one faces after a natural disaster. Unfortunately, oppression comes along with the quality of life for poor and middle classes. Thus, the experiences of higher and lower social classes are vastly different in terms of physical and psychological effects on the people. Higher social classes have the ability to restore any damages caused from a natural disaster in a timely manner, such as Hurricane Matthew. On the contrary, those people of the lower economic and social classes affected by the hurricane in Haiti, Bahamas, and Jamaica this past weekend will take a number of months or even years to rebuild their prior lifestyles. On pg. 4 in the

However, the extreme poverty of Haiti limits its calamity of adopting to climate change. Since climate change has aggravated the extreme weather around Hispaniola island, Haiti and Dominican Republic experienced lots of hurricanes in the recent past. But Haiti usually afforded many more casualties and much economic loss than Dominican Republic did; the disaster relief system of Haiti hasn't been well developed, which has rendered thousands of homeless people after

Moreover, when looking at the impact of a tropical storm we see that it isn’t just the location that affects the extent of said impact. What is arguably more influential on the impact of tropical storm is the level of wealth possessed by the country hit. This again is illustrated by Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy hit both Cuba and the USA, one an LEDC the other the wealthiest country in the world. In the USA, money was raised by the people of the country through television companies such as Disney-ABC, NBC, and News Corporation raising a total of $41 billion dollars to help the area hit

Guelas 1Armina GuelasAnthony PratoURST 241.100111 March 2018Midterm Assignment: Hurricane KatrinaThereis not much of an argument to be made against the idea that Hurricane Katrina was a complete political disaster in terms of intergovernmental relations; there is no hiding that no one was ready to handle the storm or its aftermathby way of everyone’s general lack of response. The federal, state, and local governments are all to be blamed for the political fallout of Katrina. Itis difficult to point a finger at any single government, person, or organization when almost all of them were at fault in some way. Everyone was waiting for someone else to take action, and when no one did, they (all of the agencies, governments, and people)

Tropical storms are defined as low pressure systems that form over tropical seas and can devastate areas of human settlements with hurricane force winds and floods. The severity of these impacts varies greatly depending on a countries development levels and is attributable to numerous factors such as: infrastructure, job structure, the provision of service, prediction technology and how much aid is received. Hurricane Katrina and Cyclone are two examples of tropical storms that affected areas drastically apart in economic development.

Despite the key points of the development paradigm, there are no recognized indicators that this disaster was the result of human exploitation or marginalization of poor people. The study did show a vast difference in household income levels. The median household income in the US affected area was $25,347, compared to a median household income of $10,570 in the affected area of Mexico. Regardless of these income level differences, the study concluded that local television appeared to be the primary source of information for 44% of the participants, with 43% using two sources of information for hurricane warnings and updates and 88% found that information they received was helpful (Ruin et al., 2008). There were no complainants from the interviewees that they failed to have enough time to prepare for the hurricane. Military forces of both countries were deployed to conduct rescue missions for their respective

Did you know that Hurricanes have killed approximately 1.9 million people worldwide over the past 200 years. (Karen lenhardt said in her 2017 article on facts about hurricanes). We are seeing more and more of these occur, this year we have already encountered 13 named storms, 7 of them being hurricanes. Only four other seasons since 1995 have had that many by Sept. 18. Just two more by the end of the year would put 2017 in the top 15 since 1851. Maggie Astor stated in her New York Times news report about the 2017 Hurricane season . We must take notice and learn about the hurricane process so that we are able to understand the stages that hurricanes go through to get to be so fierce and devastating to get the strength to kill that many people.

While natural disasters such as floods, drought and hurricanes are commonly thought to occur due to environmental forces such as weather, climate and tectonic movements; a deeper investigation into the ‘disaster’ displays other contributing forces. Human factors have a large, if not equal, contribution to the occurrance and outcome of such disasters (Pelling, 2001). As Pelling (2001) argues, there is both a physical and human dimension to ‘natural disasters’. The extent to which the natural occurrence of a physical process, such as a flood or earthquake, impacts on society is constructed by that society, creating a ‘disaster’ as measured by a

Hurricanes are among the costliest and the most destructive of natural disasters. Since 1995, the United States has witnessed more intense activities by hurricanes with Mobile County in Alabama experiencing hurricane Ivan and hurricane Dennis in 2004 and 2005 (Link, 2010). In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes to have hit the United States and was rated category three in Mobile County (Marchi, 2007). The response to the disaster was poor owing to the lack of proper disaster preparedness as

Three people during a dangerous hurricane try to stay alive, and one person walks to the bathroom. While he is walking to the bathroom a window break and a piece of glass cuts him in the neck. They cannot call the ambulance because of the hurricane. He later dies in her own home from blood loss. (bleeding to death)I wanted to research on this natural disasters because I want to help make the world safe and its life in the world. I care about the destruction of these natural disasters. There can be a building that is one billion dollars that is just built, then it was destroyed during a tornado or hurricane.The main point or question i’m overall trying to cover is that why don’t we try to stop or predict and help fight the disasters in the world. We can help in a lot of ways to help stop many things from dying or the destruction it causes.I think I can stop this by telling the world that we can help prevent these natural disasters by helping each other to help predict and someday prevent them.