doi:10.1111/j.1467-7717.2012.01303.

Return or relocate? An inductive analysis

of decision-making in a disaster
Jacques Henry Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Louisiana
at Lafayette, United States1

This paper proposes an inductive analysis of the decision as to whether to return or to relocate
by persons in the State of Louisiana, United States, who evacuated after Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita in August and September 2005, respectively. Drawing on interviews with evacuees in
these events and extensive fieldwork in the impacted area, the paper seeks to identify the folk
dimensions of the decision-making process, assess their arrangements, and situate the process
in the larger context of risk and resilience in an advanced society. It suggests that, despite the
material and emotional upheaval experienced by affected persons, the decision-making process is
a rational endeavour combining a definite set of tightly interconnected factors, involving material
dimensions and substantive values that can act in concert or in conflict. In addition, it indicates
that there are significant variations by geographic areas, homeownership, and kind of decision.
Some theoretical implications, practical measures, and suggestions for future research are examined.

Keywords: decision-making, disaster, Katrina, Louisiana, Rita

Introduction: whether or not to return and the reasons why

Within days of the exodus of residents of the Gulf Coast of the United States follow-
ing Hurricanes Katrina (29 August 2005) and Rita (30 September 2005), questions
started to surface about the return of evacuees. Interestingly, they did not make refer-
ence to issues generally raised in a post-disaster context, such as when access to
distressed areas will be authorised by civil authorities, when debris will be cleared,
or when power will be restored. Comments by officials, evacuees, journalists, and
concerned but non-affected citizens alluded to another possible outcome: that there
may be no return.
Some may remember the reply by the then Speaker of the US House of Repre-
sentatives, Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who, when asked about committing billions
of federal dollars to the rebuilding of New Orleans, said: ‘That doesn’t make sense to
me [. . .] it looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed’ (Associated Press, 2005).
Media headlines and accounts suggested too that returning may not be an option.
The New York Times reported on ‘the decision to move on, not back’ (Medina, 2005)
and on New Orleans-based business leaders ‘getting very comfortable’ in Houston,
Texas (Sentell, 2005). In Lafayette, Louisiana, two hours west of New Orleans, where
thousands had found refuge, The Independent Weekly (2005) pondered ‘Where do evac-
uees go next?’ In a series of articles commemorating the first anniversary of Katrina,
The Times Picayune of New Orleans continued to ask, ‘Where is Home?’ (Thevenot
and Bazile, 2006).

Disasters, 2013, 37(2): 293−316. © 2013 The Author(s). Journal compilation © Overseas Development Institute, 2013
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
294 Jacques Henry

To be sure, plans and promises were made to ensure that displaced residents of the
Gulf Coast could return. Louisiana authorities and residents prepared for the long term.
Fearing a land grab of their devastated property, activists and residents organised.
A month after the storm, ‘Do not bulldoze’ signs were dotted around distressed
areas of New Orleans and neighbourhood meetings were taking place. Local and
state officials set up a variety of planning commissions, including the Bring New
Orleans Back Commission, the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, and the Louisiana
Recovery Authority. Among the measures taken to ensure the return of evacuees
was the symbolically-named Road Home programme. Launched in July 2006, it sought
to compensate those who lost their homes in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and wanted
to return to Louisiana.
Between calls for permanent relocation and endeavours geared towards repatriation,
displaced Louisiana residents were understandably confused and hesitant. According
to an assortment of surveys of evacuees’ intentions (Frey, 2005; Morin and Rein, 2005;
Dewan, Connelly, and Lehren, 2006; Louisiana’s Media Center, 2006; McCarthy et
al., 2006; United Way of Acadiana, 2006; Alfred, 2007), a rather large segment of
the Katrina evacuee population—between one-third and one-half—did not wish to
return. It was the only somewhat consistent finding given that there were significant
differences in timing, the size of the sample (from several dozens to thousands), the
methodology (from face-to-face interviews to postal surveys), the targeted population
(evacuees in shelters, for instance), and the location of evacuees at the time of the study.
Early estimates of actual population return conducted by several research organi-
sations painted an even bleaker picture. In 2006, the Economic and Social Research
Institute (ESRI) projected that 10.4 per cent of evacuees would return to the Upper
Ninth Ward in New Orleans by the year’s end and that none would return to the
Lower Ninth Ward before 2011 (cited in Green, Bates, and Smyth, 2007). The 2006
American Community Survey by the United States Census Bureau reported that,
in July of that year, the population of New Orleans stood at 223,000 (Frey, Singer,
and Park, 2007), one-half of the pre-Katrina population. The RAND Corporation
predicted that, by September 2006, New Orleans would have regained 198,019 people,
approximately 41 per cent of its estimated 485,000-strong population in 2000. The
same report also projected varying rates of repopulation depending on housing hab-
itability and the extent of storm damage: 10 per cent for severely flooded zones, 25
per cent for seriously flooded zones, 75 per cent for moderately flooded zones, and
110 per cent for neighbourhoods that experienced no flooding (McCarthy et al.,
2006). In October 2006, the Louisiana Health and Population Survey (2006) estimated
the population of New Orleans at 187,525.
Beyond these estimates is the question of whether to return or relocate. ‘Simply,
houses’, responded Shirley Laska in October 2006 when asked what it would take
to revive New Orleans. A professor of sociology at the University of New Orleans,
and a specialist in environmental and disaster issues, she was also affected by Katrina.
Her elliptical answer delivered to a conference’s audience highlighted the urgency
of the recovery if not its complexity.
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 295

For this, one must turn to several studies that have examined the factors at play
in evacuees’ decisions regarding whether to return to or relocate permanently away
from New Orleans. A survey by the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, conducted
in 2007 among displaced residents, discovered that myriad factors prevented a return
to New Orleans (Alfred, 2007). ‘Can’t pay for move’ (22 per cent) and ‘Can’t find
place to live’ (21 per cent) were the primary reasons cited by respondents, followed
by worries about finding a job (13 per cent), crime and safety (6 per cent), and
school and childcare (6 per cent). Other factors—need money to rebuild, status of
house and repair, fear of flooding, concerns about government, health, and opportu-
nities elsewhere—were chosen by fewer than five per cent of respondents. In short,
there were numerous reasons but no deciding factor.
A couple of other studies took a different approach and analysed post-Katrina
demographic data. For the Brookings Institution, demographer William Frey and his
colleagues examined 2006 American Community Survey data to draw ‘the first full
picture of . . . what types of residents moved in, stayed, or remain displaced one year
after the storm’ (Frey, Singer, and Park, 2007, p. 1). Their evaluation pointed to the
significant impact of structural factors such as age, family status, race, sex, and socio-
economic position. They concluded that ‘out-migrants were younger, poorer, more
likely to be black and more likely to have children’ than New Orleans’ residents who
had stayed (Frey, Singer, and Park, 2007, p. 1). Accordingly, in 2006, the population
of the city and metropolitan area was not only smaller than in 2000 but also was
older, less poor, and had fewer children.
Research by the RAND Corporation conducted between November 2005 and
January 2006 sought to produce estimates on the repopulation of New Orleans at sev-
eral intervals (McCarthy et al., 2006). Researchers developed their analysis using two
conceptual frameworks:

• The first, drawing from neoclassical economics, assumes that migration (in this case,
return to New Orleans) is guided by a rational evaluation of current and future
costs and benefits that, typically, differ by individuals’ characteristics such as age,
employment, marital status, number of children, occupation, previous migration
experience, and sex.
• The second, drawing from the new economics of migration and social network
theory, proposes that people act collectively in evaluating costs and benefits and
thus are influenced by ties with co-workers, community, family, friends, and
neighbours.

Developing assumptions from media reports, think-tank assessments, interviews

with professionals, and the data of planning agencies (McCarthy et al., 2006, pp. 19–20),
they pinpointed the following factors as pivotal to the repopulation of New Orleans:
housing availability (primary factor); provision of basic services and infrastructure;
storm protection and flood control; employment; schools and colleges; social net-
works; availability of services and amenities; healthcare; insurance and financing;
296 Jacques Henry

construction and rebuilding; and willingness and ability to return. This last factor
is itself affected by variables such as ‘evacuees’ age and economic status; evacuees’
distance of relocation from New Orleans; the availability and quality of schooling;
and measures to protect the city from future natural disasters’ (McCarthy et al., 2006,
p. 24) All of these dimensions are linked to one another via interdependencies:
‘The process of rebuilding New Orleans is not linear in nature and is not comprised
of independent processes’ (McCarthy et al., 2006, p. 10).
Taking yet another angle, Green, Bates, and Smyth (2007) studied the impedi-
ments to recovery in the devastated Ninth Ward of New Orleans. They identified
structural and flood damage, the limited resources of residents, widespread assump-
tions of no viability, the slow pace of recovery, the media portrayal of damage, the
temporary housing shortage, and the lack of access to capital as preventing or delay-
ing the return of residents.
In sum, the limited research on the return of evacuees to New Orleans has pro-
duced a list of factors dominated by the issue of housing, economic aspects such as
the cost of living, employment, the availability of educational, health, and commer-
cial amenities, and the effects of structural dimensions such as age, race, and sex.
From these perspectives, the repopulation process appears to be complex, multi-
layered, framed by dimensions of social stratification, and assumedly economically
rational as per a cost–benefit analysis. Yet, Alfred (2007, p. 4) draws attention to a
paradoxical point: ‘those with the greatest desire to return are also those least pre-
pared to position themselves for a return’.
These partial and preliminary findings are much in line with the limited treat-
ment of decision-making in disaster studies. Interestingly, while the social science
of disaster largely started with an examination of decision-making by emergency
personnel in the emergency phase, knowledge of the post-event phase of the proc-
ess among displaced persons remains spotty at best. One of the reasons why is that
most of the research still deals with pre-event situations, especially whether or not to
evacuate (Perry and Lindell, 1991), and the process of decision-making for businesses
(Kunreuther and Bowman, 1997; Clegg, Kornberger, and Rhodes, 2007), medical
patients (Rosenstein, 2004), and institutional agents (Smith and Dowell, 2000), as
well as recovery strategies and actions by formal organisations such as business and
government (see Petterson (1999) for a potent illustration) So, it is not without basis
that Hoffman (2002, p. 140) remarked that the answers to the questions ‘why for
instance, do the victims of disasters return to the area wasted?’ and ‘why do those
living in regions of chronic disaster stay?’ remain ‘inexplicable riddles’.
The other points of convergence between early Katrina/Rita data and disaster
recovery findings are the centrality of structural predictors—age, ethnicity, race,
social capital, and social class—(Bolin and Bolton, 1986; Peacock, Morrow, and
Gladwin, 1997) and concerns about housing (Oliver-Smith, 1990; Phillips, 1993). The
mainstream sociological analysis, dominated by the framework of vulnerability and
resilience, questions the frequent tendency of a rapid ‘return to normalcy’ (Wisner et
al., 2004), which means a return to the risky and unequal conditions of the pre-event
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 297

context. In short, those households that are most vulnerable are not only most affected
by a disaster but also are less likely to recover and are less able to mitigate future risk.
There appears to be a consensus on such a conceptualisation of the recovery process.
The Committee on Disaster Research (2006, p. 158), for example, concluded that
‘household recovery is not . . . a predictable and stage-like process that is common
to all households but rather . . . a multiplicity of recovery strategies’ largely shaped by
‘axes of stratification . . . as well as availability of and access to different forms of
monetary aid, other forms of assistance, and informal social support’. In her study
of the mudslides on the central Venezuelan coast in 1999, Revet (2006) framed the
recovery as a conflict about which normalcy to restore—that of households or that of
the state and business? Back in Louisiana, Laska (2006) suggests that one view recov-
ery as a conflict between a return to normalcy, betterment, safety, and equity-justice.
Situated within this framework—between the predictable impact of structural
dimensions and the urge to return to normalcy—this paper seeks to add to these find-
ings. By concentrating on the insider aspects of the decision-making process, it shifts
the focus from structural dimensions and powerful institutional agents to the actions
and perceptions of individuals directly affected by disaster.

Methods
Data for this study are derived from interviews with evacuees of Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita. In addition, contextual information was collected from Federal Emer-
gency Management Agency (FEMA) personnel and volunteers, as well as through
participation by the research team in activities dedicated to providing assistance to
evacuees, and in ceremonies, meetings, and other formal and informal gatherings
in Louisiana dedicated to the recovery.
Interviews were conducted between September 2005 and August 2006 with 108
persons who had evacuated because of the events. At the time of the interviews,
most evacuees either had not yet returned home or were settled in a new location—17
were back home. The majority of the interviews were performed by the project’s
principal investigators (this author and Sara LeMenestrel); 18 informants were inter-
viewed by five undergraduate students enrolled in research classes at the University
of Louisiana at Lafayette in spring 2006.
Informants were selected using what can best be described as purposeful random
sampling. Some were known from extensive fieldwork performed in the area over the
years and some were contacted through snowballing, recommended by acquaint-
ances, informants, and individuals interested in the project. The majority, though,
were sought in locations known to house or cater to evacuees, such as hotels, public
shelters, social agencies, and sites run by non-profit organisations (the Association
of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) office in New Orleans
and Hope Ministries in Baton Rouge). Overall, an effort was made to compile a cross-
sectional sample of the affected population, including evacuees from across the area
(from Plaquemines Parish in the east to Cameron Parish in the west), as well as those
298 Jacques Henry

in different socioeconomic positions (owners and renters, employed and not employed),
those belonging to different ethnic and racial groups and different age cohorts, those
holding different marital status, and those who had suffered different levels of losses.2
Interviews lasted from 15–120 minutes, with a median duration of 30 minutes, and
discussions varied in terms of topic and level of detail. Informants were interviewed
once. Subsequent contact was maintained with approximately a dozen informants,
with interaction ranging from email exchanges to hours-long informal visits.
To identify the dimensions of the decision-making process, mentions of people,
actions, and attitudes were coded and then organised in semantic categories using
ATLAS.ti, a qualitative data analysis and management software. To ensure consistency
of data within the framework of an inductive grounded approach, only statements
dealing directly with personal experiences and situations were retained for coding.
For this reason, and due to other technical issues, 84 interviews were retained for
coding. In total, 15 themes were identified that informants referred to in some man-
ner when discussing their plans: age, attachment to place, community interaction,
education and schools, environment and risk, family, financial means, health matters
and facilities, homeowner’s insurance, housing, infrastructure, opportunities, regula-
tions (mostly building codes), values, and work.
Statements addressing most factors required little if any interpretation to be
grouped together. There were mentions of relatives by blood or marriage, lodging
(house or apartment, owned or rented), professional activities (or lack thereof ) (business
owner, employed, self-employed), age, health, education, values (duty, family or pro-
fessional obligation, fatalism, religion), financial means, insurance, regulations, infra-
structure (state of levees, provision of utilities), and opportunities (better schools, greater
chance of employment, more safety elsewhere). Other factors were constructed by the
research team as etic categories since they were not referred to as such in the interviews
and may not match the informants’ conceptualisation as closely. We coded statements
about contact with neighbours, involvement in community activities, appreciation of
the quietness of the countryside, or urban bustling activity as interaction, comments
about roots, love of neighbourhood, or attachment to place of birth as attachment to
place, and statements about fear of future storms or wetland loss as risk.

Major dimensions of the process

Analysis of the data revealed four major dimensions of the decision-making process
of evacuees:

1. the process involves a plurality of tightly interconnected factors;

2. the process combines objective and subjective factors;
3. the process is deliberative in that factors may act in concert and in conflict in rela-
tion to a decision; and
4. there are significant variations by geographic area, homeownership, and type of
decision.
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 299

1. The plurality of factors manifests itself at both the individual and the aggregate
level. All informants referred to several themes when discussing their plans, usually
between three and five, although some noted as many as nine. References to factors
typically were spread out throughout the interview, but in some cases, informants
such as Mia, a 40-something homeowner whose house in Vermilion Parish sustained
no damage, listed several of them succinctly:

This is home for us, you know. I don’t think my husband would ever go anywhere’s else.
This is it. And if my house would be destroyed, I’d probably come back here, too, you
know. ’Cause it’s quiet here. You know, you’re not in the city, you don’t hear all the sirens.
It’s a quiet neighborhood.

In this case, we interpreted her statement as involving a connection to her pre-

event domestic circumstances (‘This is home for us, you know’ coded as attachment
to place), the presence and intent of her husband (coded as family), the importance
of their house (coded as housing), the possibility of destruction (coded as risk), and
a feature of her neighbourhood (rural and quiet, coded as interaction). Additional
references to these factors appeared in the interview—but they were coded only
once—as did mentions of age not contained in the excerpt above. In the end, there-
fore, our coding procedure resulted in the modelling of Mia’s statement as the co-
occurrence of six factors (age, attachment to place, family, housing, interaction, and
risk) shaping her decision to return home.
Furthermore, the decision factors highlighted by informants do not only appear
independently of one another as discrete dimensions, but often they materialise in
networked combinations. For instance, it may not be the availability or absence of a
job or lodging, or the welfare of family members, that influences the decision of the
interviewee, but rather the condition of the family’s ancestral house, the spouse’s employ-
ment, a child’s education, or a moral obligation to the neighbourhood or a career.
To capture these relationships at the individual and aggregate level, we depicted
references to factors and to their co-occurrence across the interviews on a graph.
Figure 1 shows the frequency of mentions of all 15 factors (the first number), the inci-
dence of their co-occurrence with other factors (the second number), and the factors
with which each is related (the arrows).3 For example, the factor of housing (top)
appeared 45 times in informants’ statements and co-occurred with all 14 other fac-
tors. By contrast, the factor health (left) was cited by only six informants and appeared
in conjunction with only eight other factors.
The density of the network’s webbing suggests strong multi-factorality of the
decision-making process of evacuees at the aggregate level. Factors are all related to
others within the dataset. Most are connected to all others (family, housing) or all
but one or two (attachment to place, infrastructure, insurance, interaction, means,
risk, values, and work). Even the least prevalent factors are still related to the majority
of other factors.
300 Jacques Henry

Figure 1. Decision factors for all evacuees

Source: author.

The model suggests a three-tier networking of factors. It clearly shows the cen-
trality of the factors of family, housing, and, to a lesser extent, work in the decision-
making process. Not only are they mentioned in one-half of the interviews, but also
they are connected to all of the other factors. All three are ubiquitous and dense
factors. The welfare and opinions of family members, whether they are ascendants,
descendents, siblings, or spouses, matter greatly, as does the place where the family
was formed and lived—the home.
This statement by Glen, a retired musician from Cameron Parish in his seventies,
whose house sustained little damage, points up the importance of the family–house
connection:

Yeah, all our family’s here. That’s the reason why we won’t leave. Like I said we’re born
and raised here. This is our only home we’ve ever known. Our children were born and
raised here. . . . To me, if you have your family, that’s all you need, that’s all you have.

Less central but still pivotal factors are attachment to place, community interac-
tion, financial means, home insurance, risk, and values such as religious beliefs or
sense of duty. These themes appear in approximately one-quarter of the interviews
and are connected to 12 or 13 others. Finally, a handful of factors—age, education,
health, infrastructure, opportunities, and regulations—appear to be relatively mar-
ginal since they were mentioned by only 10–15% of informants and co-occur with
fewer factors.
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 301

2. The factors of decision-making belong to different kinds or connect to different

aspects of reality. Age and health are human physical traits whereas housing and infra-
structure have a solid materiality to them. Community interaction, education, family,
and work are forms of social arrangements that imply activities, which applies also to
insurance and regulations. Other factors such as attachment to place, opportunities,
risk, and values are more conceptual or immaterial in nature.
A useful distinction can be made therefore between material and non-material
factors. Some are mostly objectively material: the condition of the house, the avail-
ability of a job, the presence or absence of neighbours and relatives, the level of
family finances, the amount of the insurance payment, a medical condition, and the
height of a building. Others deal mostly with attitudes, meanings, and views. These
values-based factors involve religious beliefs, a sense of duty, fatalism, family tradi-
tions, professional ethic, a dedication to a location such as a neighbourhood or a town,
and the sense of belonging to a culture or history, such as the historical plight of
Cajuns or the long and complex presence of African-Americans in New Orleans.
Arguably, all of the factors contain some measure of materiality and immateriality.
A combination of objective and subjective dimensions was frequently present when
evacuees spoke about factors: was the job they had satisfactory? Was the flood protec-
tion sufficiently reassuring? Was the educational degree they pursued worth the effort?
In short, objective factors were associated to a subjective evaluation and, reversely,
feelings and emotions were connected to behaviour. As Burton, a 65-year-old fed-
eral employee born and raised in Vermilion Parish, put it succinctly: ‘I am staying.
I like the place’.
Home is a topic where the connection between the physicality of a location and
the attitudes and feelings it evokes was made evident. Our informants connected
in various combinations the physical existence of a building or land, the history or
possibility of interacting with others as a source or object of support (emotional and
material), and a mostly conceptual level-like link to a meaningful past or to cul-
tural identities. Karen, a 44-year-old upper-class housewife, reflected on her struggle
to make her damaged New Orleans house a home again:

On one hand, there is a house that has become less of a home to me and just a house
that’s in New Orleans . . . over the last few weeks, as I have emptied it. And also I had
to come to grips with what it might take to make it a home again. And what it would take
to make it a home again are pretty big obstacles. So it is just a house.

In another instance of combining material and non-material dimensions, objec-

tive and subjective factors are woven together in the rationales offered by evacuees.
Interestingly, the direction of the decision—whether to relocate or to return—appears
to be independent of such a combination of material factors with attitudes and
values. In some cases, values are the deciding factors. Barbara, a 58-year-old medical
worker and homeowner returning to her gutted house in New Orleans’ Upper Ninth
Ward, loves her city so much she ‘can’t get the taste out [of her] mouth’:
302 Jacques Henry

When I was in Houston I was offered a job paying ten to fifteen thousand dollars more
per year than I make here. And they called and ask if I was gonna take it and I told them
‘no’. Some of my friends just say I’m crazy. I just said money doesn’t mean anything to
me if I’m not happy and it doesn’t! I thought my husband would have something to say
about it but he said if you wanna go home, we gonna go home.

Across town, Alexander, a 78-year-old retired letter carrier, would have rather
moved away from his flooded house near the 17th Street canal, but material contingen-
cies—age, fixed income, and no mortgage—forced the hand of him and his wife:

I looked into not coming back . . . as of now, we have a roof over our head and some elec-
trical work has been done and some of the plumbing has been done. We are trying to get
other parts for the house being worked on. I didn’t want to come back, but we had no
alternatives.

At the aggregate level, the interrelations between mostly objective and subjective
dimensions are evidenced by the comparable incidence and connectedness of the
values-based and material factors. As shown in Figure 1, aside from the pivotal role
of family and housing, the factors of attachment to place, risk, and values appear as
frequently as the factors of financial means, insurance, and work. In addition, these
two kinds of factors are tightly connected to one another. For example, the only
factor attachment to place never co-occurs with in the dataset is health; for values,
it is health and regulations, the two factors mentioned least overall. This suggests that
evacuees not only call on various factors in making a decision as to whether to return
or relocate but also on different kinds of factors, as captured by our basic dichoto-
mous categorisation.

3. The decision process is deliberative in that factors may act in concert or in conflict.
Several configurations appeared in our dataset. In some instances, all factors pointed
in the same direction, as the statements by Barbara and Mia illustrate: the situation
of housing, employment, finances, and the agreement of family members, inter alia,
on whether to return or to relocate. In other instances, a conflict develops within
a particular factor (family members disagreeing, for instance) or between factors
(weighing a job offer away against returning to the family home). Jon, a 52-year-old
wife and mother whose rented house was filled with 14 feet of water, disagrees with
her family about returning to Chalmette in Saint Bernard Parish:

Actually, my husband wants to. When we discuss it, I say I don’t. And we discuss places
to go. He keeps bring up, he want to go back. I don’t wanna go back. I’m not going back.
My sister wants to. My daughter wants to.

In addition to conflicts within the family, informants also referred to conflict between
kinds of jobs, field of employment, and education institutions they considered in order
to acquire or complete a degree. In another instance, conflict arises between factors.
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 303

This exchange between the Boudreaux spouses from Cameron Parish captures the
dynamics of the indecision when factors are pulling in different directions:

Husband: So, we kinda undecided now. We don’t know if we wanna try again. You know,
we’re kinda getting up in age a little bit, and I just don’t know if we ought to take another
chance. I hadn’t asked her opinion yet. What do you think, Re?
Wife: I don’t know . . . I don’t think any other place could really be home, but then,
you go back and look at it, and there’s nothing really there but debris and everything.
It’s not really home anymore, but . . . you still want it to be home again. That’s what
I’d like to do, but we’ve got medical problems. The government’s stating like that we gotta
have things so high up, and everything so many feet up, and if it comes to that, we’re not
able to climb stairs and things like that. So we got a lot of things that’s gonna determine
whether we go back or not. So, we just gotta sit and talk about it and think about it.

In their case, age, government regulations, health issues, and a destroyed house con-
spire against returning home, something these long-time residents have done twice
since being ‘washed out’ by Hurricane Audrey in 1957.

4. Finally, we analysed the data for variations between displaced persons.4 We found
some degree of variance in the decision-making process between three categories
of evacuees: those from Acadiana—the rural ethnic Cajun area on the southeast
coast of Louisiana that was affected by Rita—and the New Orleans metropolitan
area affected by Katrina; those who owned and who rented their lodging; and those
who had decided to return, those who had opted for relocation, and those who re-
mained undecided.
Figures 2 and 3 show the network of factors identified by informants in Acadiana
and New Orleans. This regional variable can be viewed as a proxy for a rural–urban
variable and in some measure also for a racial one since all our Acadiana informants
were white and most New Orleans ones were black. To gauge the relationship
between the individual and aggregate level, we added one graphic dimension: the
number of times the pivotal dimensions actually co-occurred in informants’ state-
ments. The most frequent instances are represented by a thick line.
Some similarities are apparent. Both populations rely on the multiplicity of factors
noted above in a comparable configuration. At the core, we find family and housing,
with attachment to place, community interaction, financial means, insurance, and
work as important dimensions. However, differences are notable. For metropolitan
residents, the combination of family, housing, and work constitutes the core of their
decision-making process in terms of connectedness and incidence of factors. Age,
building regulations, and health do not seem to matter much. For Acadiana residents,
the core of the decision-making process includes attachment to place and commu-
nity interaction, with work, insurance, financial means, and age appearing to be
second-tier factors. Education, the existence of opportunities to be pursued elsewhere,
the state of the region’s infrastructure, health, and values such as faith or a sense of
duty do not seem to matter as much.
304 Jacques Henry

Figure 2. Factors for Acadiana

Source: author.

Figure 3. Factors for metro New Orleans

Source: author.

What do these differences mean? In part, they are likely a reflection of the different
populations of Acadiana and metro New Orleans and the different conditions under
which they live. First, the damage in Acadiana, although severe, proved to be less
intense than the devastation in the New Orleans area, making infrastructure repairs
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 305

less of a concern—electricity sources and roads in Acadiana were repaired quickly

and levees did not fail. Second, the members of the population of Acadiana, and of
our sample of informants, tend to be older, ethnic Cajun, white, rural, homeowners,
and more stable. Our data suggest that, when faced with a decision in a non-routine
situation, Acadiana residents consider their long-time presence in the area and the
community network as pivotal factors. This is in line with the findings of previous
research conducted on the provision of support following Hurricane Andrew in south
Louisiana in 1992. Researchers proposed that, for example, the diversity and size of
personal networks, especially kin, and community attachment had a significant effect
on short-time recovery support (Hurlbert, Haines, and Beggs, 2000; Haines, Hurlbert,
and Beggs, 1996). It appears plausible that individuals in Acadiana, knowing that
they can count on the support of their local network, include it at the centre of their
decision-making process.
The differences between homeowners (see Figure 4) and renters (see Figure 5)
are more marked. For homeowners, the decision-making process revolves, unsur-
prisingly, around housing, by far the most common and connected factor. Still, it
appears as a multi-factored complex process. All of the factors we identified are present
and tightly connected to one another, some— attachment to place, family, financial
means, insurance, interaction, risk, work, and values—more than others—age, edu-
cation, health, and regulations. The model suggests that homeowners base their
decision on their housing situation, but only as it is connected to family, job, levels
of insurance, and acceptable risk.
By contrast, the decisions of renters seem more streamlined. Three factors do
not appear at all: age (renters in the sample were younger than homeowners), and,

Figure 4. Factors for homeowners

Source: author.
306 Jacques Henry

Figure 5. Factors for renters

Source: author.

Figure 6. Factors for return

Source: author.

understandably, homeowners’ insurance and building regulations. Several others seem

peripheral at best: attachment to place, infrastructure, means, risk, and values. What
seems to matter most are the dimensions of education, family, work, and to a lesser
extent, the condition of the lodging, the existence of opportunities, and commu-
nity interaction. The density of the webbing also is noticeably looser, suggesting that
factors may operate more independently from one another than is the case for home-
owners. This indicates different post-disaster strategies for these two categories:
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 307

whereas restoration of the apartment or house would seem pivotal for homeowners,
resumption of work and educational endeavours appear more of a priority for renters,
along with exploration of opportunities for both elsewhere.
Finally, we looked at differences that could exist between individuals who had
reached a decision to return (see Figure 6) or to relocate (see Figure 7) and those who
remained undecided (see Figure 8). Those who planned to return linked their decision

Figure 7. Factors for relocation

Source: author.

Figure 8. Factors for indecision

Source: author.
308 Jacques Henry

to their housing circumstances first and foremost, with most of the other factors
playing significant roles, especially family and work. This statement by Rhonda, a
50-year-old teacher from Vermilion Parish whose house was ‘a total loss’, illustrates
how these factors play out even in the face of destruction:

Insurance, yeah, it won’t rebuild my home, but I will rebuild. If I have to borrow, I borrow.
But I don’t owe anything anymore anyway, so there won’t be a problem for us. We both
kept our jobs, which I’m glad of that. And we’re capable of rebuilding. I feel sorry for these
young couples who still had a mortgage and maybe didn’t have enough insurance. But
that’s how we were different, ours was paid out. What we collected, we have a good start
on a new home so. That was my main concern: would we have our jobs? But everything
worked out for us.

Those who opted not to return seem to base their decision on a trio of equally
important and interconnected factors: family, risk, and work. Housing and oppor-
tunities also appear to influence the decision. At the individual level, it would seem
that the perception of high risk to themselves and their family, along with employ-
ment and the prospect of better conditions elsewhere, act in concert in deciding to
relocate. The statement below by Patsy, a 44-year-old Latina mother of two from
Jefferson Parish, provides an illustration of the interplay of these various dimensions.
Her house sustained no damage except ‘just a little on the roof, the fences, and a
lot of debris’, which she believes will make it attractive in the real-estate market of
this suburban area near New Orleans. For her, home is ‘actually, where my kids are,
my husband’ and risk has a wide meaning encompassing fear of crime, flooding,
health hazards, and hurricanes.

And well, then we decided it wasn’t good to go back to New Orleans, because first, in the
beginning they said there was gonna be a lot of the mold and the sickness, and the sewage,
the problems with the sewage . . . . And after that we were lucky that my husband, he
was promoted in his job to be in the area of Lafayette. He was promoted not to go off-
shore anymore, he was gone 7/7. So he was promoted to be in the office, to work around
in the area between New Orleans and Lafayette and Houma and all these places where
the workers go to work. Then actually we decided we’d start life around in this area. It is
a choice because we could go back to New Orleans, but he needed to travel, he needed to
commute back and forth if we go back over there. And that’s it. And at this point of our
life, we made the decision to sell our home. . . . Even before Katrina, in the back of our
mind we were thinking maybe we needed to move along, this area, and do something,
because it was being very dangerous. . . . Like two weeks before Katrina, we had two mur-
ders three or four blocks from our house. That never did happen, you know. New Orleans
was starting to get scary.

For those who remained undecided, house and work were at the core of their
decision-making, with all other factors relegated to a somewhat distant peripheral
position. It could be argued that a conflict between these two factors hampers the
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 309

ability to reach a decision, as suggested by this statement by Ron, a New Orleans

jazz musician:

I’m not sure what makes me want to stay in New Orleans. Part of me at 50, one thing
that’s always made me want to stay, is that I’m an only child and my mother is here. And
I feel that sense of family. That might be the sense of family that make me want to stay,
but, as far as the professional person, I would be better off somewhere else.

At this juncture, several points emerge, some in line with previous research, some
adding to it. First, the factors we identified inductively match quite closely the
decision-making variables produced by early assessments by government entities and
researchers. In the latter, employment, financial situation, and housing need figured
prominently alongside two dozen other factors (see information in the Introduction
section as well as Laska, 2006; McCarthy et al., 2006; Alfred, 2007; Frey, Singer,
and Park, 2007; Green, Bates, and Smyth, 2007), as they do in our data. This classi-
fication also matches in part the reasons for moving reported by Americans in non-
disaster routine situations. The United States Census Bureau reported that the com-
bination of employment- and housing-related reasons captured 60 per cent of the
mobility of Americans over the age of 16 moving from one county to another and
64 per cent of the mobility of all movers (Ihrke, Faber, and Koerber, 2011).
However, our analysis suggests that family relationships may be just as pivotal in
the decision to move. Studies of Katrina evacuees included mentions of childcare,
education, and marital status, but did not depict the centrality of family in the proc-
ess.� Furthermore, as seen for most factors, family relationships are not important
in and of themselves, but rather as they are interrelated with other dimensions enter-
ing into the decision process.
The second difference concerns the centrality of attitudes and values alongside the
material factors usually considered by recovery studies or plans. In addition to hous-
ing and jobs, informants mentioned attachment to their place of birth and growth,
career, community, faith, sense of duty to family, a sense of self, some measure of
fatalism, and tradition as shaping their decision. Even though the factors of attachment
to place and values, and in some measure community interaction and risk, appear
less often in evacuees’ statements and are less connected than the pivotal dimensions
of family, housing, and work, they are situated near the core of the decision-making
process. Indeed, they matter more for homeowners, Acadiana residents, and those
who plan to return than they do for renters, those planning to relocate, and the
undecided. Still, our model suggests an intricate combination of material factors and
non-material values, in short objective and subjective factors.
The relevance of values in understanding the recovery process remains relatively
understudied since most attention tends to be paid to the restoration of the physical
and social environment. Studies dedicated in part to the role of values in disaster
have examined how symbolic systems of interpretation, such as Islam (Schmuck, 2000),
concepts of nature (Hoffman, 2002), materialism and traditionalism (Kasapoğlu and
Ecevit, 2004), or corporate culture (Mileti, Cress, and Darlington, 2002), frame pre- and
310 Jacques Henry

post-disaster attitudes and behaviours. Values tend to be studied in their own right,
as they influence perceptions of the event or shape recovery strategies, rather than as
part of an integrated framework that incorporates the interdependencies of material
and non-material factors.
In sum, it appears that evacuees of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita conceptualise their
decision to return or to relocate as a process combining in varying configurations
a definite set of interlocking factors. This insider’s view differs from outsiders’ concep-
tualisations which tend to identify single discrete factors, sometimes neatly arranged
in an ordered list of preferences. Still, while departing from such a business-like method,
evacuees engage in a coherent decision-making process. Collectively, they identify
the major factors at play—the same ones that outsiders and experts pinpoint—they
recognise their interrelations, they weigh their relative importance, and they acknowl-
edge zones of confusion and uncertainty. This takes place even as persons and
families are under stress, are removed from the normalcy of their former everyday life,
are confronted with doubt, and are largely powerless. In short, the process appears to
be rather rational.

Avenues for future research

We are now in a position to integrate these findings into the larger context of dis-
aster research and to chart future pathways of investigation. Admittedly, connecting
outcomes of inductive research to existing theoretical frameworks is a debatable propo-
sition. After all, a grounded approach must stand on its own and offer its own theo-
retical propositions. However, when processes and patterns that have been identified
inductively appear to dovetail with existing theoretical issues, it would seem pro-
ductive to probe such connections. There have been calls to firm up the theoretical
bases of disaster studies and to connect them to mainstream sociology (Quarantelli,
2005; Tierney, 2007) and we believe that this work contributes to the discussion in
three particular regards.
One issue warranting further scrutiny is the well-documented effect of the dimen-
sions of stratification, especially class and race. There are consistent findings that,
from exposure to risk to scope of impact and chances of recovery, populations whose
members are disadvantaged by age, racial identity, sex, or socioeconomic standing
are likely to suffer disproportionately in a disaster and its aftermath (Peacok, Morrow,
and Gladwin, 1997; Wisner et al., 2004). In addition, assessments of the (unfounded)
fears of invasion of white neighbourhoods by the ‘criminal element’ in Houston
(Settles and Lindsay, 2011) and of the wilful blowing up of the levees to dispossess
black residents (Cordasco et al., 2007) have shown how class and race affected con-
struction of meaning during and after Katrina. Furthermore, others have studied
how racial identities framed diverging perceptions of government action, media
coverage, survival tactics, and myriad others issues (Potter, 2007; Le Menestrel and
Henry, 2010).
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 311

Our approach dealt with proxies of these dimensions (homeownership for class
and region for race) and was not quantitative (a mainstay of such studies) so our con-
tribution remains necessarily limited. However, the extent of similarity with some
variation in the factors of decision between homeowners and renters and between
New Orleans and Acadiana residents demands attention. It suggests that, if members
of racial groups and socioeconomic categories are affected differently by a disaster,
evacuees, regardless of social status, tend to plan their future according to largely
similar frameworks. Family circumstances, housing, and work are pivotal factors,
as the differences in the populations interviewed account for much of the variation
noted in the models (renters do not need home insurance and retirees are not focused
on securing employment). Most of the secondary factors, such as community inter-
action and financial means, as well as values, also appear to play a comparable role in
the decision-making process.
A second issue pertains to the suggestion that variance in perception—rather
than outright difference as documented by the studies noted above—is at play as dis-
placed individuals and households decide what to do next. Consequently, rather than
thinking differently about the aftermath of disaster, people across the racial and
social spectrum appear to follow a largely similar decision process. In short, urban
blacks and rural whites may occupy different positions in society and confront dif-
ferent odds when disaster strikes, but they would approach household recovery in
comparable ways. Or, there could be a disconnect between conceptualisations of the
domestic sphere and society at large so that members of racial groups and/or classes
share more in relation to the former than the latter. At any rate, notwithstanding the
objective differences in access to resources, power, and social capital, further exami-
nation of such convergence between groups could be productive.
Finally, there is the issue of rationality. It is our contention that the decision-making
process is a rational one. Yet, we have seen that some of our informants chose to relo-
cate despite having been lightly affected whereas others opted to return home and
rebuild their shattered existence from the ground up. How can this oxymoronic
proposition be rational? At first sight, little help can be expected from Max Weber,
still a major analyst of rationality in modern societies who has occasionally, and
usefully, been called on to address issues of methodology in disaster studies (Hoffman
and Oliver-Smith, 2002; Stallings, 2005) or political organisation (Stallings, 2002;
Keithly and Rombough, 2007).
The suggested rationality of the decision-making process of evacuees, involving
material and value-based factors, stands in dire contrast to the Weberian canon of
incompatibility between formal, instrumental-rational action and substantive value-
rational action. Weber (1968) theorised that confluence of these different types of
rationality produces irrationality. In this instance, his insights appear questionable
yet highlight the matter of compatibility between different rationalities: is incom-
patibility really inherent so that one rationality would have to top the other for a
decision to emerge? And if so, on what basis? And at what cost? Or is there the pos-
sibility of accommodation? And if so, at what levels? Along which guidelines?
312 Jacques Henry

Also interested in the process of rationalisation of the modern world, Jürgen Habermas
(1984, 1987) proposed investigating this phenomenon by identifying the lifeworld (a
socialising network of shared understanding of the social world) and the system (the
political and economic structures responsible for the organisation of power and the
allotment of resources). In brief, he claims that the lifeworld in modern societies is
being ‘colonised’ by the system, meaning that social relationships are increasingly
administered by the system and its technical/instrumental logic, thus threatening the
consensual negotiation of shared meanings by people within it.
For Habermas, though, there is still hope for rationality in the public sphere despite
its politicisation and commodification. He calls it communicative rationality, and
finds its expression in ‘new social movements’ articulated around social and environ-
mental pathologies addressed by ‘green’ movements, anti-nuclear activists, and critics
of sexual discrimination, health, and lodging inequalities.
Could it be, then, that evacuees’ decision-making process is an instance of resist-
ance to such a development? As others (Laska, 2006; Revet, 2006) have noted, the
recovery strategies of state agents and households often conflict. The increasing
bureaucratisation and militarisation of emergency management in the US and else-
where has been amply documented (see Tierney and Bevc (2007) for an illustration
in the Katrina context; Ripley, 2008). While businesses, elites, and states appre-
hend and largely control the post-disaster context from a technical and practical
rationality perspective in order to allocate resources and alleviate damage, persons
and households appear to be able to maintain some form of communicative ration-
ality in their decision-making, away from the corrosive and manipulative effects of
money and power.
Indeed, there were some limited instances of organising in New Orleans to defend
against the razing of devastated areas and to promote grassroots agendas, most led
by the now-defunct ACORN. In addition, a few of our informants clearly based
their decision to return to New Orleans on political or cultural grounds. Overall,
though, the dimension of social movement, as organised collective action centred on
ideological premises, remained quite absent in post-disaster Louisiana. Still, the possi-
bility of social change in this and other disaster contexts warrants continued attention.
Further exploration of these issues could contribute to the elaboration of an explanatory
framework where issues of rationality, material interests, values, and power differen-
tials can be coherently integrated.
Some practical implications emerge. One is that the restoration of material dimen-
sions, such as housing, jobs, roads, and utilities—or lack thereof—may not necessarily
guarantee or predict the return or relocation of evacuees. Values, be it attachment
to place, faith, fatalism or family tradition, matter. Another is that one size does not
fit all in the field of recovery. Not only do recovery and mitigation measures vary
in their material impact between categories of displaced citizens, but also they are
imbued with different meanings. Since these shape the post-event decision process,
they should be part of planning for the post-disaster phase.
 Return or relocate? An inductive analysis of decision-making in a disaster 313

Acknowledgements
This research was made possible in part by a special grant from the Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris, France). Additional funding was provided by
the College of Liberal Arts of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The author is
particularly indebted to Sara Le Menestrel for her generous collaboration and invaluable
input. Thanks too to Charles Burbank, Kate Corkern, Jesse Davis, Matt Gautreaux,
and David Leslie for their participation as interviewers, and to the anonymous peer
reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Finally, deepest gratitude is
extended to the informants who agreed to participate in this project at a time of great
personal turmoil.

Correspondence
Jacques Henry, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Louisiana
at Lafayette, PO Box 40198, Lafayette, LA 70504-0198, United States. Telephone:
+1 337 482 5223; email: jhenry@louisiana.edu

Endnotes
1
This paper was produced with the cooperation of Sara Le Menestrel, Researcher, Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France.
2
The group of informants was composed of 61 women and 47 men, including 1 Asian-American,
2 Hispanics, 40 African-Americans, and 65 whites. Their ages ranged from 18–84, with a median
of 48. As to their family situation, 35 had never married, 55 were married, 4 were cohabitating, 7
were divorced, and 7 were widowed; in addition, 26 lived with dependents, while 55 did not (no
information was available on 27). Prior to Katrina and Rita, 29 were not employed or professionally
active while 70 were (no information was available on 9). At the time of the interview, 42 were not
active or employed while 56 were (no information was available on 10), and 20 lived in rented
housing while 78 lived in homes owned by themselves or their families (no information was
available on 10). Their pre-event residences were the parishes of Calcasieu (1), Cameron (8), St Mary
(1), Vermilion (20), Jefferson (9), Orleans (59), Plaquemines (2), St Bernard (3), and St Tammany (5).
  Interviews were conducted in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and New Orleans, as well as in rural areas
in the parishes of Cameron, Lafayette, and Vermilion. Locations included hotel rooms, waiting
areas, various offices, FEMA trailers, informants’ homes (in different states of destruction or recon-
struction), temporary homes, and occasionally outdoors. The interview schedule was non-directive
but still structured to allow for consistency of data collected across interviewers. A few questions
aimed to generate descriptive statements about current circumstances (how did you get here?
what are you doing now?), evocations of pre-event normalcy (have you been able to return home
for a visit? what is normal in your life now? do you keep in touch with friends and neighbors?),
and what evacuees missed. Interviewers avoided asking direct questions about the decision-making
process or outcome—such as ‘are you going back home?’ or ‘have you reached a decision?’—in
order not to add pressure to informants’ already stressful circumstances or to force them into for-
mulaic responses. Instead, questions such as ‘where is home now?’ or ‘have you thought of staying
here?’ sought to elicit thoughts and feelings linking pre-event circumstances, current displacement,
and the immediate future.
314 Jacques Henry

  Some informants gave brief, concise answers that suggested a state of certainty or that they had
reached a final decision. For example, in response to queries about home, some simply provided
the physical address of their former or current residence whereas others stated unequivocally their
intent to return or relocate. Many more, though, took the time to meander through the com-
plexity and fluidity of their circumstances, feelings—sometimes raw—and expectations to paint
a picture of their situation, hopes, and worries, steeped in doubt and rich in detail.
3
Figure 1 was constructed using the semantic layout option offered by ATLAS.ti. The algorithm
employed tries to place the coded nodes with the highest connectivity in central positions. It then
positions the rest of the nodes in such a way as to avoid overlapping and too many crossing links.
4
We report only on the variations that were found. For some dimensions, such as the time of inter-
view, there were no significant variations between persons interviewed in 2005, shortly after the
storms, or later in 2006. For other dimensions, data were unavailable (income, for instance) or
categories (age, marital status, race/ethnicity) were too small for meaningful analysis.
5
Neither do studies of mobility in routine situations, where family-related factors account for 26 per
cent of the reasons to move (Ihrke, Faber, and Koerber, 2011).

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