A hurricane ravaged street in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Source: Shutterstock.com
In the summer of 2020, Lake Charles residents experienced the negative effects of both the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Laura. Hurricane Laura was the strongest hurricane to strike since 1851 and was soon followed by Hurricane Delta. The impact of these compounding disasters intersected with poverty and the racialized violence Black women often face.
Because of these impacts and intersections, recovery for the poor Black women of Lake Charles did not look like other recoveries, even those of other vulnerable groups. Instead, these women leveraged their existing resilience—gained from years of routinely navigating a maze of systemic barriers—and their social connections to establish a recovery consistent with their personal and cultural values.
Understanding Black Women’s Strengths
In 2023, I traveled to Lake Charles to study the relationship between resilience and vulnerability for poor Black women. I use the term “poor” in my work to convey the complexity of economic status beyond income. The term poor better highlights the impacts of limited economic resources and the cascading issues that come with them, such as living in unhealthy environments, low-quality housing, or periodic food insecurity.
In Lake Charles, I worked with a community-based resource center that provided material support following Hurricane Laura. My presence at the center allowed me to connect with and eventually interview 29 women about their experiences across the disasters and their strategies for recovery.
Despite experiencing prolonged resource deprivation, the respondents in the study displayed great resilience, which was grounded in their personal and cultural beliefs about God and religion, family and community well-being, and strong sense of self. They indicated that these beliefs allowed them to remain persistent amidst the challenges they faced.
The women also expressed that physical and psychological spaces strengthened their resilience. During the interviews, the women spoke about gathering with loved ones and being able to laugh, cry, and talk about what mattered to them—the storms, their experiences rebuilding, or feelings about displacement. Whether it was a porch, outside the steps of a church, during a fish fry, or at their local food bank, these spaces provided them a way to cope and support each other. Culturally, these spaces help Black women revise existing survival strategies and develop new ones.
Creating Stability in Disruption
Recovery for the respondents was a complex process that required them to overcome material, physical, and psychological challenges. For instance, before the women could take steps to clear debris or rebuild, they had to find resources to do so. They struggled to obtain financial assistance, access health care, find transportation, file insurance claims, and receive payouts. Throughout this process, their physical and mental ailments worsened. Already in a state of precarity caused by long-standing systemic issues, the challenges the women faced before were compounded by the pandemic and hurricanes.
Although injustices such as the legacy of slavery, police brutality, drug-related violence, and mass incarceration informed these women’s lives, it also informed their ability to survive—they were able to employ the knowledge, resourcefulness, and flexibility they use regularly to navigate systems of oppression to address disaster impacts. For example, one respondent baked pastries to compensate her lawyer for an ongoing lawsuit. At least two others learned to pull and replace carpets, paint houses, and hang sheetrock. Another woman, who had pancreatic cancer and a disability, took a side job to sustain herself and her mother and pay for rebuilding materials. While this didn’t evenly counteract the effects of the cumulative losses or the structural oppression they continued to experience, it did allow them to reclaim a measure of control over their situations.
Reframing Recovery
The respondents’ version of recovery allowed them to cope with their circumstances rather than being defined by them. Although the strategies they employed weren’t much different than those used in their daily life, leveraging their social connections and resourcefulness helped them attain a form of recovery that restored some sense of well-being.
This persistence through compounding challenges demonstrates both the multi-dimensional and individual nature of resilience. Using the resilience acquired from lived experience, the women in the study navigated adversity while remaining true to their spiritual, family, and community values. Ultimately, their perspective on resilience positioned them to craft a form of recovery where they could negotiate their psychological and material well-being.
The women of Lake Charles exemplify the complex process of reestablishing lives from the ground up, recognizing these complexities can lead to tailored strategies for recovery. For scholars, it means reckoning with multiple forms of resilience. And for practitioners, this means recognizing and attending the unique and unmet needs of historically underinvested communities.
Yajaira Ayala has a PhD in disaster science and management from the University of Delaware. Her dissertation, Reframing Reality: Poor Black Women’s Experiences with Vulnerability and Resilience During the Recovery Process, explored the challenges of poor black women in the aftermath of Hurricanes Laura and Delta and the strategies they employed to face them. Ayala’s work ultimately challenges and expands theoretical notions of resiliency, vulnerability, and recovery.