This piece by Andy Horowitz looks at "the new normal" in New Orleans: more rain, more drought, more fire, less predictability. It was once a truism among scholars that disasters are “not like the crises of everyday life.” But the lines are blurred now: Can we afford to make the trip? Who will care for our child if we have to go to the hospital? Will our insurance cover an out-of-state delivery? Wouldn’t it be simpler just to store our old photographs in a waterproof box? These are not questions about the Big One. They are the banalities of life in a changed climate.
Andy Horowitz, "Hurricane Barry and the New Normal", contributed by Jason Ludwig, Disaster STS Network, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 11 August 2019, accessed 18 May 2022. https://disaster-sts-network.org/content/hurricane-barry-and-new-normal
Critical Commentary
This piece by Andy Horowitz looks at "the new normal" in New Orleans: more rain, more drought, more fire, less predictability. It was once a truism among scholars that disasters are “not like the crises of everyday life.” But the lines are blurred now: Can we afford to make the trip? Who will care for our child if we have to go to the hospital? Will our insurance cover an out-of-state delivery? Wouldn’t it be simpler just to store our old photographs in a waterproof box? These are not questions about the Big One. They are the banalities of life in a changed climate.