After hurricane Katrina, I was desperate for information about my relatives. I found my father’s family in Dallas quickly through the Red Cross website. However, my mother’s were missing for nearly 3 month’s. I searched the web for anything and probably saw ever image and knew where it was. In one of my searches for information, I found a blog with pictures of Cut Off, LA. I’d momentarily thought I’d found the answer. The blog showed pictures of a highway bridge entering a row of flooded businesses. Well, the concrete highway structure looked correct. However, in Cut Off the bridge has residential housing on both sides. It wasn’t until rural electricity was restored in November that I found that everyone was safe and the water only rose about an inch(so they say). (Swamps cover the land between the coast and New Orleans – nearly 100 miles. Cut Off is about half way in between the coast and the City.) Because of this event, I thought I would do my research on media and disaster images.
David Shukman, a reporter who covered the 2000 Mozambique flood provided an assessment of the media’s impact on this crisis. Media coverage caught pictures of victims fighting the flood waters. This footage caught the attention of the world and various nation sent aide and rescue personnel. Mozambique received $400 million in aide. However, as a reporter, David Shukman asked himself about the prices of this publicity. There were so many helicopters that their presence could have caused further drowning by the downward wind forces created by the rotor-blades. Next, this story was covered instead of the nearby war in the Congo because of the safety of the reporters. In fact, the war in the Congo was barely heard about in the press and received little attention from the rest of the world. Finally, he states that this event was heavily covered due to the ability to easily get the necessary footage. If there are no images there is seldom media coverage. David Shukman concludes that it is important for the media to play a positive role in helping people although that will not always be the case.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1294547.stmThe United Nations praises the media for their coverage of hurricane Katrina. The media showed the poor government response and showed the crime and violence that resulted. Further, the media coverage demonstrated that disaster could be predicted and avoided. This coverage challenged the belief that natural disasters are neither man-made nor predictable in that both the US Congress and US Army Corps of Engineers investigated the failure of levees that should have protected the city. AS a result, mitigation will become a greater part of disaster planning.
From the United Nations Human Settlements Programme’s Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 at
http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/5200_4764_dis%207.pdfA FEMA training paper discusses the response of media in a disaster. First, the media is essential to effectively warning the public. In fact, research suggests that victims and their relatives welcome media for information. However, the paper continues to advise of the medias ingenuity at getting a story: copying the license plate numbers of victims to track them and get a story, fabricating or spreading false rumors, and agrivating or bullying victims for statements. The paper states that it’s the emergency manager’s job to prevent or correct these events by providing frequent information about the event. Thus, the media are essential; but, they must be monitored.
From Research about the “Mass Media and Disaster: Never (Well Hardly Ever) The Twain Shall Meet” at
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/docs/EMT/ScanlonJournalism.pdfFEMA offers a course on media and film images of disaster. Here the emphasis is on how these portrayals differ from scientific understanding and shape public and official awareness. I’m offering the link to the syllabus for those interested if reading the papers mentioned.
From the FEMA’s EMI Training center is offering a class titled Images of Disaster in Film and Media at
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/docs/University%20of%20North%20Texas%20-%20Images%20of%20Disaster%20in%20Film%20and%20M.docSo, let me show you some of my photos:
My husband and I on our cruise of Resurrection Bay near Seward, Alaska in June 2005. This was taken just after our tour boat was turned around from the open sea where we had hoped to see calving glaciers by the Coast Guard. Seas were very rough and the Coast Guard didn’t feel like rescuing us. The next day, we took a large Alaska state ferry across Prince William Sound to Valdez. The sea hopped such that we could hardly walk and wondered if our car was crushed by the large RV next to it. The Coast Guard was probably right in that this smaller ship would have at best had a hard time. (My camera, unknown fellow traveler picture taker)
From my brother. This is the area I lived in as a teenager north of New Orleans several days after hurricane Katrina (September 2005). Many of the tall pine trees were uprooted. I was shocked. My Mom recalls how the trees bent halfway to the ground in Carmen. (I guess I was busy having fun with my friends and did not notice.) But, none broke in that storm.
February 2006, 6 months after hurricane Katrina, Miami is still boarded up. In fact, everywhere people were rebuilding. My brother, who lives in northern Florida, said he was in Miami just after hurricane Andrew. That hurricane had broken all of the glass windows on all of these buildings and blown all of the furniture and paper into the street. He said it was the biggest mess he’d ever seen. By the number of boards on these buildings, I wonder if Katrina did the same. Yet, the people who lived in this were friendly and gracious to me despite the inconvience of rebuilding.
In April, 2008, Mike and I toured the mid-West to visit his relatives. I loved his family. However, this was a large road trip. I looked for tornados across Oklahoma. Then just after dark and just outside Oklahoma City lots of debris flew into us. I'm not sure what caused this; but it frightened me. We were in Missouri for the New Madrid earthquake. Then, we were in Davenport, Iowa as it started flooding (show in the picture). And, finally we stopped for a night in South Dakota and woke up to a blizzard. I was running a 102 degree fever; however, we had to get out of Mitchell, SD before the highway closed in 2 hours. We barely got out of the area that was closing and I eventually got to a hospital to find that I’d had a very bad respiratory infection. It was good to get home. And, 2 weeks later we went to Hawaii and there weren’t any unusual weather related events.
Thanks for taking the time to hear my stories and see some of my photos.
Taking photographs can be added to log of events. Meetings are quite common and taking photos is a way of showing who was present. It’s critical to also have pictures of key staff who will be onsite during an event. Names and pictures of Incident Management Team members were forwarded to security personnel who would allow building access to identified key personnel. This was a means to address security issues and ensure overall safety. Visitors during the event were asked to return after the restoration of power when security alarms and normal operations were back in place.
