Fatigue and a New Normal

CARRI and the Center for Policy and Resilience of the University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Park Campus hosted a “Ghosts of Katrina” workshop on June 5 and 6. The workshop brought together a number of scholars who are working on issues surrounding Hurricane Katrina and its impact on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi as well as community leaders, activists and volunteers. Results from that workshop will be published soon and available on the CARRI web site.

It was very interesting that of the many topics and issues discussed, two themes were constant in the research results and in the community discussions. One theme can be best described as “Katrina fatigue” and the other theme is a strong desire to know when the community recovery is over. “When will we know that we are back to normal?” Clearly the two ideas are strongly linked.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast was devastated by Katrina. The recovery while dramatic has been long, slow and difficult. The communities have demonstrated great resilience, are coming back robustly, have accomplished much and will be stronger communities in the end. But they are tired. As a result of that tiredness, they want to know when they can consider themselves out of the recovery period and back into normal community growth and development. It’s a reasonable question that is undoubtedly conflicted by legal, political and social considerations. The question manifests itself in a number of ways from low attendance at community recovery events to the results of the recent local municipal elections.

Community resilience is all about getting back to normal but for a devastated community, what is normal? The CARRI team has been talking lately about the “new normal” for a resilient community. One of our proposed principles for a community framework is that resilience is ultimately about achieving a “new normal” level of functionality. This idea recognizes that a community that has been severely affected by a major disruptive event will be changed forever. The “old normal” is gone replaced by a new reality. The new normal will be different – it may be worse but in a truly resilient community it may be significantly better. Defining the “new normal” before the disruptive event – creating a resilience vision – will allow a better understanding of when recovery is over and day-to-day life has resumed. It may also help with the fatigue problem.

These ideas seemed to resonate with the audience at the conference.