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“Every Hurricane Leaves You with Different Priorities”: Preparation, Cultural Response, and Narrative Entitlement

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“Every Hurricane Leaves You with Different Priorities”: Preparation, Cultural Response, and Narrative Entitlement “EVERY HURRICANE LEAVES YOU WITH DIFFERENT PRIORITIES”: PREPARATION, CULTURAL RESPONSE, AND NARRATIVE ENTITLEMENT by © Virginia S. Fugarino A Thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Folklore Memorial University of Newfoundland October 2015 St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador ABSTRACT The United States Gulf Coast is a region with a long-standing history of hurricanes. As such, the residents of this region have a wide variety of experiences in dealing with the threats and actualities of hurricanes. Although the region has experienced numerous storms in its history, this discussion focuses on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005) and Hurricane Ike (2008). Central to this discussion is the idea that safety is a concern important to all people involved before a hurricane but that the expressions of this concern can vary both on an institutional and individual level. In this way, this thesis looks at preparation both from a media perspective (as media presents a construction of preparation based upon using official sources) and from the residents’ perspectives. News articles from the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Houston Chronicle are drawn from the days leading up to hurricane landfall—the period when preparation messaging is prominent in the media. Content analysis of these articles (influenced by Zhang and Fleming 2005 and Choi and Lin 2008) develops a sense of the media narrative of preparation. In juxtaposition, this thesis also examines residents’ approaches of hurricane preparation through analysis of personal experience narratives. Through fieldwork interviews and archival research, this thesis analyzes narratives from the Greater New Orleans and Houston areas. The analysis of the media narratives and the personal narratives underscore that preparation is a complex issue. Using the concepts of master narrative (e.g., Lyotard 1979, Lawless 2001 and 2003) and narrative entitlement (e.g., Shuman 2005 and 2006), this thesis proposes ii that there are areas of resistance and cooperation between the two kinds of narratives. The media narrative, which is often constructed using the perspectives of “officials” (government, meteorologists, etc.), creates an “authoritative” messaging of how residents should prepare, but the residents’ themselves, with experiences of their own to draw from and their own perspectives on the appropriate responses to storm threats, may respond in ways that do not align with the official recommendation. As part of this interplay between official and lay narratives, the discussion proposes the idea that the “narrative of pre-victimization” may be at play in some official communications. This narrative places residents within a narrative space in which they may be doomed to fall prey to a hurricane if they do not follow official recommendations. This thesis adds to the disaster folklore literature by extending research on hurricanes by considering multiple storms in its scope. It contributes to the discussion of interactions between media and personal narrative. This discussion also opens up the discussion of hurricane stories to include preparation as a useful area of narrative study. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank several people who have been instrumental in seeing this thesis through to completion. First, I would like to thank my advisory committee. To my supervisor, Dr. Diane Goldstein: Thank you for your comments and advice throughout the thesis process. To my advisory committee members, Dr. Cory Thorne and Dr. Holly Everett: Thank you for your thoughtful suggestions and comments that made me think about new ideas in my work. Also, I want to express appreciation to the rest of the Folklore Department, both staff and faculty, for their assistance and friendship over the years. The processes of being a graduate student generally and writing a thesis specifically are not always smooth, linear ones, and having a supportive department helps greatly when one encounters bumps and twists. Without friends and family, this thesis would not have been possible. Necessary appreciation goes to my parents, as without them I would very literally not be here. Beyond being great parents, they have been supportive forces for me—rallying behind me when I faced important decisions or expressed self-doubt. I also want to thank Jennifer Thorburn (Dr. Jennifer Thorburn, I should say) for being both a wonderful friend and colleague over the years. Finally, I need to express sincere gratitude to my husband, Chad Somerton, without whom I certainly would not have finished this thesis. Thank you for being a caring listener, a considerate reader, and a true partner in life. iv Writing acknowledgements is a challenging undertaking. Only a short space and so many people that deserve appreciation. To thank everyone who had a positive impact on me over the last many years would take its own manuscript. I hope that my general expression of thanks here will serve as a drop in the bucket of gratitude I feel. v Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... iv List of Tables .............................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ............................................................................................................... x Prologue ........................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One: Theory and Methodology ....................................................................... 4 Defining Disaster .............................................................................................. 4 Chapter Outline ................................................................................................. 7 Disaster Folklore ............................................................................................. 10 Disaster Folklore and Hurricanes .................................................................... 12 Personal Experience Narrative and Oral History .............................. 15 Legend ................................................................................................. 19 Material Culture ................................................................................. 22 Custom and Identity ............................................................................ 24 Gaps in the Literature ......................................................................... 29 Personal Experience Narrative Studies ........................................................... 30 Narrative Analysis .............................................................................. 33 Tellability ............................................................................................ 35 Patterns in Narrative .......................................................................... 38 Thematic Pattern: Narrative Order in Chaos ..................................... 39 Entitlement .......................................................................................... 40 Master Narrative ................................................................................. 41 Considering Preparation.................................................................................. 45 Methodology ................................................................................................... 50 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 54 Chapter Two: Hurricanes and the Texas-Louisiana Coast ......................................... 56 vi Defining Storms .............................................................................................. 62 A Selection of Past Storms ............................................................................. 72 The 1900 Galveston Hurricane ........................................................... 73 Hurricane Carla.................................................................................. 76 Hurricane Betsy .................................................................................. 77 Hurricane Camille .............................................................................. 78 Hurricane Alicia ................................................................................. 80 Tropical Storm Allison ........................................................................ 81 Hurricane Gustav................................................................................ 83 Three Particular Storms .................................................................................. 85 Hurricane Katrina .............................................................................. 85 Hurricane Rita .................................................................................... 89 Hurricane Ike ...................................................................................... 92 Chapter Three: Media Narratives of Preparation ........................................................ 97 Newspaper Analysis...................................................................................... 100 The Article Collection and Method ..................................................
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