Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mississippi River Stories: Lessons From A Century Of Unnatural Disasters, Sandi Zellmer, Christine Klein Jan 2007

Mississippi River Stories: Lessons From A Century Of Unnatural Disasters, Sandi Zellmer, Christine Klein

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the nation pondered how a relatively weak Category 3 storm could have destroyed an entire region. Few appreciated the extent to which a flawed federal water development policy transformed this apparently natural disaster into a “man-made” disaster; fewer still appreciated how the disaster was the predictable, and indeed predicted, sequel to almost a century of similar disasters. This article focuses upon three such stories: the Great Flood of 1927, the Midwest Flood of 1993, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005. Taken together, the stories reveal important lessons, including the inadequacy of engineered flood …


A Tale Of Two Imperiled Rivers: Reflections From A Post-Katrina World, Sandra Zellmer Jan 2007

A Tale Of Two Imperiled Rivers: Reflections From A Post-Katrina World, Sandra Zellmer

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

Hurricanes are a natural, predictable phenomenon, yet the Gulf Coast communities were devastated by the hurricanes of 2005. One year after Hurricane Katrina struck, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers responded to a congressional request for an accounting by admitting culpability for the destruction of New Orleans. Its structural defenses failed not because Congress had authorized only moderate Category 3 protection, which in turn let floodwaters overtop the city's levees, but because levees and floodwalls simply collapsed. The so-called network of federal and local structures was a haphazard system in name only, where floodwalls and levees of varying heights utilized …


Unwelcome Neighbors? Industrial Growth And Water Pollution In Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1940-1960, Jonathan Zachary Delaune Jan 2007

Unwelcome Neighbors? Industrial Growth And Water Pollution In Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1940-1960, Jonathan Zachary Delaune

LSU Master's Theses

This paper focuses on the industrialization of Lake Charles, Louisiana during World War Two and the resulting shifts in pollution-related policy and public perceptions of pollution. A major impetus for the industrialization of the South was federal investment during the war. This is especially true for Lake Charles, a city where industrial agglomeration began with war-time financing of manufacturing plants to combat the shortages of aviation fuel and rubber. By tracing the public response to offensive pollution and the resulting shift in public policy, this paper will reveal a fundamental conflict between development-minded government institutions and a population interested in …