Louisiana's Response to Extreme Weather

Shirley Laska, PhD, is professor emerita of sociology and founding past director of the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology at the University of New Orleans (UNO-CHART). She has been conducting applied research on the social/environmental interface, natural & technological hazards, and disaster response for 25 years. Her work includes studies on residential flood mitigation, hurricane response, coastal land loss effects, coastal fisheries, community risk assessment and risk management for coastal hazards, use of information technology and GIS as support tools for disaster management, and evacuation of the vulnerable. She has presented her work at National Academies of Science conferences and Congressional committees. Since Katrina her work has been focused specifically on lessons to be learned from the event, especially in the realm of community recovery and hazard resiliency. This work emphasizes Participatory Action Research in both slow onset - coastal land loss and sea level rise --and abrupt major disaster events - hurricane Katrina and the BP oil leak. She is the 2008 recipient of the American Sociological Association's Public Understanding of Sociology Award for her continuous collaboration with physical scientists and her presentations nationwide on Katrina/Rita impacts, and awards from the ASA Environment and Technology Section and the Rural Sociological Society's Natural Resources Research Group.

Chapter1. Introduction to the Book: "Ahead of the Curve".- Part1: Louisiana's Risks Anticipating the Future Challenges to Other U.S. Coastal Communities.- Chapter2. Managing Risks in Louisiana's Rapidly Changing Coastal Zone.- Part2: Climate Adaptation Challenges and Solutions.- Chapter3. Connecting the Dots: The Origins, Evolutions and Implications of the Land Use.- Chapter4. Antagonisms of Adaptation: Climate Adaptation Measures in New Orleans and New York City.- Chapter5. Adapting to a Smaller Coast: Restoration, Protection, and Social Justice in Coastal Louisiana.- Part3: Relocation and Resettlement -An Extreme Adjustment.- Chapter6. Community Resettlement in Louisiana: Learning from Histories of Horror and Hope.- Chapter6. Sojourners in a New Land:  Hope and Adaptive Traditions.- Part4: Types/Locations of Communities and Their Responses to Extreme Weather.- Chapter8. Urban - Post-Disaster Development Dilemmas: Advancing Landscapes of Social Justice in a  Neoliberal Post-Disaster Landscape.- Chapter9. Re-Imagining Housing: Affordability Crisis and its Role in Disaster Resilience and  Recovery.- Chapter10. Suburban/Mid State- The 2016 Unexpected Mid-State Louisiana Flood: With Special Focus  on the Different Rescue and Recovery Responses It Engendered.- Chapter11. Rural- Challenges of Post-Disaster Resilient Recovery in Rural Areas.- Chapter12. Coupled Coastal-Inland - Regional Resilience:  Building Adaptive Capacity and Community Wellbeing Across  Louisiana's Dynamic Coastal-Inland Continuum.