Germaine Jackson

The Value of Leisure in Coping with Natural Disaster: a Case Study in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Germaine Jackson

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have witnessed more than their share of cataclysmic events, both natural and human-made. Most notable is Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 storm that ravaged the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi. The infamous history of Hurricane Katrina?s devastation stems from a couple of factors. First, the death toll reached what, for Americans, was a shockingly high figure of 1, 577 people. Second, and more socially and politically relevant, was the federal government?s mismanagement of the crisis. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of leisure services available to adolescents following the traumatic events of Hurricane Katrina. As such, this study was based on a three-phase, mix-methods approach. First, 100 adults who were adolescents during Hurricane Katrina filled out a structured questionnaire derived from the criteria enumerated for Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV ? TR (DSM-IV-TR) in order to make an informal assessment of the level of stress these adolescents/youths experienced during and after the events of Hurricane Katrina.