Natural Hazards Observer
| May 2006 | Volume XXX | Number 5 |
Below are descriptions of recently awarded contracts and grants related to hazards and disasters. An inventory of awards from 1995 to the present is available at www.colorado.edu/hazards/resources/grants/.
Disaster Vulnerability in Relation to Poverty in the Katrina Event: Reconnaissance Survey and Preliminary Analysis. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $110,000, one year. Principal Investigators: Andrew W. Smyth (Upmanu Lall and George Deodatis), Columbia University, Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, 610 SW Mudd Building, New York, NY 10027; (212) 854-3369; e-mail: smyth@civil.columbia.edu and Catherine Taylor, Tulane University, Department of Community Health Sciences, 1440 Canal Street, Suite 2301, New Orleans, LA 70112; (504) 988-5391; e-mail: ctaylor5@tulane.edu. This research will determine the vulnerability of the poorest sectors of New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina to identify interventions that might help or hinder the recovery process and suggest policies that will reduce risk exposure to future disasters. The researchers will analyze four systems and their interactions: the poor of New Orleans, the infrastructure in the parishes where they live, the financial and risk transfer tools available to them, and the natural resources that they use for their livelihoods.
Mapping and Analyzing Emergent Multiorganizational Networks in the Hurricane Katrina Response. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $141,257, one year. Principal Investigators: Carter T. Butts, University of California, Irvine, Department of Sociology, 2145 Social Science Plaza A, Irvine, CA 92697-5100; (949) 824-8591; e-mail: buttsc@uci.edu and Noshir S. Contractor (Feniosky Peña-Mora), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Speech Communication, 244 Lincoln Hall, 702 South Wright Street, Urbana, IL 61801; (217) 333-7780; e-mail: nosh@uiuc.edu. As is typical in a disaster, the response to Hurricane Katrina involved multiple organizations with different roles and responsibilities. This project seeks to advance the understanding of interorganizational coordination in disaster response by analyzing the emergent multiorganization networks involved in the response to Katrina and by exploring the potential for real-time intervention in such networks. Using novel computational and statistical methods, the research will capture, validate, and integrate data from news reports, official documents, and other information sources (such as blogs) to produce estimates of interorganizational interaction over time. The data produced by this research will be useful for individuals studying the problems related to the Katrina response, and the findings, tools, and methodologies derived from the research will be generalizable to future disaster response situations.
Adapting to Evacuation: Using Information Technology for Social Support. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $99,684, one year. Principal Investigator(s): Robert E. Kraut (Sara B. Kiesler), Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science, NSH 3515, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213; (412) 268-7694; e-mail: robert.kraut@cmu.edu. This research will focus on how technology may have affected the exchange of help and support after involuntary relocation following Hurricane Katrina and in the search for family and friends lost in the evacuation. It will examine the coping mechanisms that displaced individuals employed to deal with the hurricane’s aftermath and the technologies they found most useful. It will also look at how volunteers used technology and their ability to help those hurricane victims who did not have direct access to the Internet or cellular phones. The results should be useful to computer scientists interested in innovative uses of technology that worked and did not work in this disaster and to social scientists concerned with the processes underlying social support and disaster coping. It should also be of interest to policy makers who need information about the role played by information and communication technology in the disaster and where investments need to be made to alleviate the effects of future disasters.
Social Communication Networks for Early Warning in Disasters. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $70,789, one year. Principal Investigator(s): Malik Magdon-Ismail (Mark K. Goldberg and William A. Wallace), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Computer Science Department, Lally 2nd Floor, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180; (518) 276-4857; e-mail: magdon@rpi.edu. Technology alone cannot ensure that information is delivered to all users in a timely and meaningful fashion. How information flows through a society is intertwined with the social network dynamics of the society. The purpose of this project is to gather data on how the global communication network functioned during Hurricane Katrina in terms of its use by various social groups. The research aims to provide insights into how emergency warning messages can be propagated through the social network. It will start by building an understanding of the nature of the communication network in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and the nature of the social group structure that overlays this network.
Survey and Analysis of Decision Making in the Displaced Populations from Hurricane Katrina. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $197,396, one year. Principal Investigator: Kavita Patel, RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401; (310) 393-0411; e-mail: kavita_patel@rand.org. Funding for this project will allow for a follow-up survey of populations displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Survey questions will focus on decision making pertaining to repatriating or relocating to other communities. Information will be collected about safety and health, socioeconomic backgrounds, factors that influenced decisions during evacuation, and plans for employment and housing. The data will permit a descriptive and analytic examination of how decisions were influenced by factors such as income, religion, and education.
Perceived Risks and Willingness to Pay for Hurricane Protection. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $96,638, one year. Principal Investigator(s): W. Douglass Shaw (William Neilson, Richard Woodward, Mary Riddel, and Samuel Brody), Texas A&M University, Department of Agricultural Economics, TAMU 2124, College Station, TX 77843-2124; (979) 845-6322; e-mail: wdshaw@tamu.edu. A common problem for policy makers that want to support programs that mitigate risk is that people do not generally wish to pay for programs to reduce risks when the consequences of an event are not foremost in their thoughts. Although strong support for such programs is evident immediately after an event like a hurricane, support generally fades over time. This study will examine the nature of this eroding support by focusing on society’s perception of risks.
Tracking Migratory Behavior of Hurricane Katrina Evacuees, Phase I: Sample Identification, Data Collection, and Analysis. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $93,080, one year. Principal Investigator: James Johnson Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler Business School, CB #3440, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3440; (919) 962-2214; e-mail: JohnsonJ@Kenan-Flagler.unc.edu. Hurricane Katrina led to one of the largest urban evacuations in U.S. history, triggering a major, unplanned social experiment in the dynamics of contemporary urbanization and migration. To improve understanding of these dynamics, this project will survey a sample of evacuees from New Orleans to test hypotheses regarding migration networks and links between spatial and economic mobility. Results will provide new information on postdisaster migratory dynamics and assess how and to what extent these dynamics differ from existing understanding of migratory behavior in more routine times.
The Social Fabric under Stress. Baton Rouge’s Explosive Growth after Hurricane Katrina. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $59,942, one year. Principal Investigator(s): Frederick Weil (Edward Shihadeh and Matthew Lee), Louisiana State University, Sociology Department, 17C Stubbs Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803; (225) 578-1140; e-mail: fweil@lsu.edu. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita displaced hundreds of thousands of people, many who evacuated to nearby cities and communities. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, received perhaps the largest share of evacuees relative to its population size (as many as a quarter of a million added to a population base of about 400,000). This study will investigate the strains on Baton Rouge’s social fabric posed by this influx. Addressing central concerns of sociology, political science, and criminology, it will focus on the impact that social capital, community involvement, connections, and trust has on a range of outcomes, including trust or blame of authorities, public policy preferences, fear of crime, feelings of stress and/or optimism, attitudes toward the evacuees, and intergroup relations, especially race relations.
Psychological Functioning of Children in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Funding Institution: National Institute of Mental Health, $175,375, two years. Principal Investigator: Mary L. Kelley, Louisiana State University, Department of Psychology, 227 Audubon Hall, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803; (225) 578-4113; e-mail: mkelley@lsu.edu. This study will examine the impact of Hurricane Katrina and the resulting displacement on youth mental health, social behavior, school adjustment, and family functioning. Potential protective and risk factors associated with the relation between displacement (as well as other hurricane exposure variables) and child adjustment will be investigated. The researcher anticipates that findings will be used to develop public education resources and materials that may be useful to families in the aftermath of disaster.
The Parent-Child Relationship and Children’s Adjustment Post-Hurricane Katrina. Funding Institution: National Institute of Mental Health, $74,346, two years. Principal Investigator: Virginia Gil-Rivas, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Psychology, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223-0001; (704) 687-4747; e-mail: vgilriva@email.uncc.edu. The long-range objectives of this study are to identify mechanisms by which children adjust in the aftermath of disaster and strategies for intervention to foster successful adaptation. A primary goal will be to further understanding of the role of the caregiver-child relationship in postdisaster adjustment.
A Planning Initiative for a Gulf Region Technology Education Project for Disaster Preparedness and Recovery. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $61,842, one year. Principal Investigator(s): Anna Faye Kelley-Winders (Jodi L. Harris and William Murray), Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Applied Technology and Development Center, 10298 Express Drive, Gulfport, MS 39503; (228) 897-4360; e-mail: annafaye.kelley@mgccc.edu. This project is a cooperative planning initiative involving Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Jones County Junior College, Pearl River Community College, and Mississippi State University and their industrial partners to develop a model for an educational system to produce a technological workforce for disaster protection and response.
Disaster, Religion, and Mental Health in New York City. Funding Institution, National Institute of Mental Health, $40,173. Principal Investigator: Joshua Moses, The City University of New York; e-mail: moses18@hotmail.com. This ethnographic research will investigate reactions of religious leaders and mental health professionals to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the ways in which novel organizations and professional hybrids have attempted to deal with perceived gaps in mental health services. By focusing on collaborations between clergy and mental health professionals, it will increase knowledge in two interconnected areas: theoretical issues concerning the consequences of extreme events on the relationship between mental health theories and religion and changing relationships between clergy and mental health professionals in New York City resulting from the attacks of September 11 and their relevance to the role of clergy in disaster mental health preparedness.
Search for an Indian Ocean Paleotsunami Record along the Andaman Coast, Thailand. Funding Institution: National Science Foundation, $19,475, one year. Principal In vestigator(s): Brady Rhodes (Matthew Kirby), California State University, Fullerton, Department of Geological Sciences, 800 North State College, MH-341A, Fullerton, CA 92834-9480; (714) 278-2942; e-mail: brhodes@fullerton.edu. Prior to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, there was no impetus for a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean partly because there are very few known records of previous tsunamis in the region. Efforts to understand the future tsunami hazard depend on knowledge of the prehistoric tsunami chronology. This project aims to verify the existence of paleotsunami deposits in coastal marshes of Phuket, Thailand, and provide a preliminary Holocene depositional chronology for the Andaman region to help dispel the myth that this was a one-time event and lend momentum to tsunami hazard preparation along the densely populated and rapidly developing Andaman coast.
NIH Announces Rapid Assessment
Post-Impact of Disaster Grants
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued a program announcement for Rapid Assessment Post-Impact of Disaster (RAPID) grants. The purpose of this program is to provide a rapid funding mechanism for research on the postimpact of disasters to permit access to a disaster area in the immediate aftermath of the event. Prompt assessment may be crucial to many kinds of mental health disaster studies, including those that focus on service seeking, on efficacy of outreach or prevention efforts, and on identifying high-risk victims on the basis of early response. The RAPID grants are designed to provide a limited sum of money for early assessment to investigators who intend to use the preliminary data from this initial effort as a basis for a subsequent full research application. Applications should be submitted within approximately six weeks of the identified disaster event. For the full announcement and information on application procedures, visit http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-06-253.html.
FEMA’s FY 2006 Repetitive
Flood
Claims Program
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Repetitive Flood Claims (RFC) grant program provides funding to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk of flood damage to structures insured under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) that have had one or more claim payments for flood damages. RFC funds may only be used to mitigate structures that are located within a state or community that cannot meet the requirements of the Flood Mitigation Assistance program because of reasons related to cost sharing or capacity to manage the activities. The long-term goal of the RFC is to reduce or eliminate claims under the NFIP through mitigation activities that are in the best interest of the National Flood Insurance Fund.
RFC grants are awarded nationally without reference to state allocations, quotas, or other formula-based allocation of funds. Congress has appropriated $10 million for RFC grants for fiscal year (FY) 2006. Eligible mitigation activities are demolition or relocation of flood-prone structures where the property is deed restricted for open space uses in perpetuity and acquisition of properties.
Applications are due June 30, 2006. For more information, including how to apply, see the full announcement, which is available at www.fema.gov/government/grant/rfc_srl/. For questions about accessing the announcement, contact Cecelia Rosenberg at (202) 646-3321 or Cecelia.Rosenberg@dhs.gov.