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Disaster studies have made important progress in recognizing the unequally distributed consequences of disasters, but there has been less progress in analyzing social factors that help create "natural" disasters. Even well-known patterns of hazard-creation tend to be interpreted generically--as representing "economic development" or "capitalism"--rather than through focusing on the more specific dynamics involved. We illustrate this point with two recent and well-known cases of flooding--those in the upper Mississippi River Valley and in the Katrina-related devastation of New Orleans. In the former case, damage was caused in part by building the very kinds of higher and stronger floodwalls that were shown to be inadequate in the latter. In the New Orleans case, a more important factor in the death and destruction was the excavation of a transportation canal. In both cases, and many more, the underlying causes of damage to humans as well as to the environment has involved a three-part pattern, supported by the political system--spreading the costs, concentrating the economic benefits and hiding the real risks. In very real senses, these have been floods of folly, created not just by extreme weather events, but by deadly and avoidable patterns of political-economic choices. Comparable patterns appear to deserve greater attention in other contexts, as well. (Contains 1 figure.)

Objectives. Although many observers have interpreted Hurricane Katrina's damage to New Orleans as a case of nature striking humans, we draw on the sociological concept of the growth machine to show that much of the damage resulted instead from what humans had done to nature—in the name but not the reality of “economic development.” Methods. We triangulate findings from multiple qualitative techniques, including first-hand fieldwork, interviews, and analyses of historical records. We focus on a particularly telling illustration: the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a transportation canal. Results. Although the canal was widely predicted to deliver prosperity, it mainly created environmental damage, destroying wetlands that had formerly protected New Orleans from hurricanes. Despite enthusiastic predictions about its economic importance—plus millions of dollars in ongoing federal investments—the “outlet” was used by only a dozen of the ships for which it was designed during the entire last year before Katrina hit. Conclusions. This was clearly not a case of an “enduring conflict” between the environment and the economy; it was a case where economic benefits to a tiny number of beneficiaries created profound costs to the environment, and to humans in turn. Claims about supposed “economic benefits” from environmentally harmful projects need to be examined more closely in other contexts, as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a basic historical background for understanding the nature of contamination, corrosion and social order. The history of disaster research started when military planners began to wonder about the ways in which communities might respond to something as disastrous as a sneak nuclear attack, and as technological prowess and post-war prosperity combined to offer at least some prospect for managing the wildest of nature's moods, rather than merely responding to them. The professional community studying technological disasters has gone through a substantial shift in viewpoints over the past several decades. By the mid-1980s, a growing number of researchers were beginning to wonder, whether the systematic differences between natural and technological disasters might most reasonably be traced to causes that include but go beyond the kinds of obvious death and destruction that were the major preoccupation of the field during its early decades. If the aftermath of a natural disaster is typified by volunteers who come in to offer a hand, the aftermath of a technological disaster is perhaps best typified by lawyers who offer instead the back of a hand.