As a child on the Gulf of Mexico, evacuation to higher ground for floods, hurricanes, and tornado warnings were common. At the end of August 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the homelands of this author's father and grandfather in Louisiana. Hundreds of miles of wetlands, already threatened, were turned to open water; vital brackish waters were…

Eddie Francis bursts out laughing when he recounts his unexpected coaching debut for Southern University at New Orleans this past semester. The men's track team was planning to travel to Tennessee for a national indoor championship meet, but their part-time coach, a runner himself, couldn't accompany them because of a race he would run in Europe…

Hurricane Katrina brought to the surface serious questions about the capacity of the public health system to respond to community-wide disaster. The storm and its aftermath severed developmentally protective family and community ties; thus its consequences are expected to be particularly acute for vulnerable adolescents. Research confirms that…

The 1988 fires at Yellowstone National Park burned 1.4 million acres in the tri-state areas of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho--encompassing the greater Yellowstone area--and burned some 800,000 acres within the park itself (Franke 2000). This article discusses this extraordinary fire event and contains helpful resources for bringing the science of…

Violence and natural catastrophes have made schools and universities more vigilant about protecting students and staff on their campuses. Students and workers also need to get to and from their schools, and once on a campus, they need to get from one facility to another. In this article, the author suggests that administrators must make sure…

Hurricanes and tropical storms served as natural experiments for investigating whether autism is associated with exposure to stressful events during sensitive periods of gestation. Weather service data identified severe storms in Louisiana from 1980 to 1995 and parishes hit by storm centers during this period. Autism prevalences in different…

The United States possesses the most capable research enterprise, the largest economy, and the most sophisticated societal infrastructure in the world, yet it remains notably vulnerable to catastrophic damage and loss of life from natural hazards. Among weather hazards, hurricanes account for over half of the total damage inflicted. Despite their…

A little more than two years ago, Hurricane Katrina set its sights on the New Orleans area, and the storm and flooding that followed killed more than 1,400 Louisiana residents, destroyed billions of dollars of property, and sent more than 1 million people fleeing the storm's devastation. Many of those displaced in the days following the storm were…

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, forced the fall semester closure of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. In the aftermath of this unprecedented storm, the Tulane leadership set forth a plan for renewal to secure the survival, recovery, and sustainability of the institution,…

In this article, Kristen L. Buras examines educational policy formation in New Orleans and the racial, economic, and spatial dynamics shaping the city's reconstruction since 2005. More specifically, Buras draws on the critical theories of whiteness as property, accumulation by dispossession, and urban space economy to describe the strategic…

This document provides a framework of guiding principles and general steps addressing the construction of safer and more disaster resilient education facilities. It is aimed to be adapted to the local context and used to develop a context-specific plan to address a critical gap to reaching the Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development…

In the fall of 2005, Tulane University responded to Katrina's devastation by undertaking a significant re-envisioning of the university's mission and strategy. Tulane needed to survive financially without sacrificing the core academic strengths that have drawn so many students to them: a holistic undergraduate experience that leverages the…

Some regions are prone to hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or earthquakes. Other tragedies, such as fires or acts of violence, can occur just about anywhere. Regardless of the specific type of disaster, schools and universities must be prepared to cope with crises that can disrupt operations, destroy facilities, and displace students and staff.…

Natural disasters are among the numerous events known to have a significant probability of producing trauma in school-age children, given the critical mental, physical, social, and emotional development that occurs during childhood. Studies involving children who have experienced natural disasters point to a significant increase in psychological…

The teacher leaders and school administrators at Nipher Middle School in Kirkwood, Missouri, have recently embraced a new set of strategies for supporting learning for all students. During the weekly problem-solving conversations that are a part of their response-to-intervention model, it became evident that clusters of students with unique and…