Assignment:
The Physical and Social Underpinnings of the Hurricane Katrina Disaster
In this paper, you should use your understanding of natural disasters as both physical and social phenomena to explain why Hurricane Katrina led to such loss of life and devastation. In effect, you will be answering the question: To what degree was the Hurricane Katrina disaster caused by physical conditions and to what degree was it driven by social conditions?
In writing your paper, make sure you cover three main topics:
1) What is the physical background to the event? How did physical conditions come together to create such a powerful hurricane? Was the hurricane itself out of the ordinary? Does this physical background fully explain the tremendous disaster that followed?
2) When the hurricane hit, what characteristics of New Orleans' natural and built environment worsened the impact of the hurricane? To what degree can we consider the flooding that followed the hurricane to be a "natural" event and to what degree was it human created?
3) Finally, what aspects of the social environment influenced the outcome of the hurricane? What factors meant that so many people were exposed to the hurricane? Were all people affected equally? If not, who was worst hit and why? To what degree was this disaster socially created? Did human activities reduce the impact of the hurricane in any way?
Although you should ensure that you have discussed the three main topics listed above, your paper should be written as continuous prose (not as individual answers to each question). Remember that the overall goal of your essay is to discuss the degree to which Hurricane Katrina was a physical event and to what degree the disaster was socially created.Make sure that your essay has an introduction that outlines the question you will be addressing in your paper, and a conclusion that makes your final assessment of the evidence clear. Remember to provide evidence for all the arguments that you put forward. This evidence might be in the form of a quotation, a citation, a graph, a map or even a photo.
Your paper will be completed in several steps:
1) Bibliography
You will first be asked to submit a short bibliography. Your bibliography should consist of ten sources that you believe may be of use for your paper. Every source listed should be a reliable academic source; in this case, please stick with peer-reviewed journal articles, academic books and gray literature (reports from reputable organizations such as NOAA or the National Hurricane Center).Please format your bibliography according to a standard citation style. It doesn't matter which citation style you use, as long as you are consistent.You do not need to provide any notes on your sources, just list them.
When you write the final paper, you will be expected to cite at least FIVE academic sources in making your arguments. Remember: every source that you cite in your paper should be in your bibliography; every reference to another person's work in your paper should be cited in your bibliography. Starting off with ten potential sources in your bibliography is a good way to ensure that you have at least five solid sources that you end up citing in your final paper. You may cite different sources in your final paper from the ones you had in your bibliography if the sources from your bibliography turn out to be inaccessible or not useful.
You may also include reliable Internet sources in your final bibliography (e.g., web pages from NOAA, or government reports) or news reports from reputable news agencies (e.g., CNN, BBC) as additional sources, but I would still like you to look at FIVE journal articles or academic book chapters. You should NOT cite non-specialist Internet sources such as Wikipedia in your paper, although you may use Wikipedia to identify relevant academic sources (look at the bibliography provided at the bottom of aWikipedia page). You must then go to each of these sources and determine for yourself whether or not it is a reliable academic source before using information from it or listing it in your bibliography.
Final Draft
Your final draft should be approximately six pages, double-spaced, excluding the bibliography. Remember to write in continuous prose.