Item Detail
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13004
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0
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0
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English
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Aftermath of Disaster : The Teton Dam Break
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Columbus, Ohio
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Ohio State University
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Ph.D. diss.
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"This dissertation is an exploratory study of the social-psychological impact of community-wide disaster. This topic, in spite of a paucity of research, has generated a controversial debate in the disaster literature. The controversy, formulated within the discourse of trauma and psychological disorder, centers on the amount and persistence of personal and social disorganization which follows in the aftermath of disaster. The present study uses a qualitative approach to address this issue as one aspect of a general exploration and description of disaster experience. The field work for this study was conducted in the Upper Snake River Valley of Idaho nearly three years after the Teton Dam collapsed. Retrospective accounts were obtained from a small sample of valley residents using open-ended and in-depth interview techniques. These accounts were analysed and the analysis was supplemented with official statistics, historical documents and information gathered through participant-observation and interviews with knowledgeable informants. Increases in conduct defining of psychological and social disorganization were not empirically supported. An examination of official statistics failed to demonstrate a post-disaster increase in suicide, strange and bizarre behavior, admission to psychiatric hospital, divorce, acute emotional crisis or alcohol consumption. Increases in alcohol and drug related arrests were observed although the increase is explainable by an influx of construction workers and intensified police surveillance. The implications of the trauma-disorder approach is that problems and adjustments of the aftermath of disaster are essentially individual and intrapsychic problems generated by the emotional impact of disaster experience. From the perspective of valley residents, the significant adjustments of disaster recovery are existential problems associated with rebuilding. These problems originate in the social context as a consequence of an organized disaster response. Paradoxically, the socially organized response creates conditions which both mitigate and exacerbate the problems of rebuilding. Three analytically distinct phases of the rebuilding process are identified. A thematic account of each phase--uncertainty, obstacles and transcendence--is described in terms of the interrelations between existential problems, contradictory themes and contextual features. Although most residents transcend the period of obstacles inherent in the rebuilding process, some, particularly marginal members of society become victims of "secondary disaster." These disasters have more serious and long-term implications for, unlike community disaster, secondary disasters are experienced as private tragedies resulting from social processes which benefit some and disadvantage others. This process is described as a process of individuation. The disaster experience and the rebuilding process are located within the larger context of community life. In this particular community, the structure and meaning of daily living and consequently of disaster recovery derive in large measure from an agriculturally based economy and the Mormon religion. Although these factors limit the findings of this study, the Teton disaster raises general issues that deserve more intensive study. Federal intervention and the role of the construction industry in disaster recovery are two important areas to be explored. To the extent that the findings of this study are generalizeable, inequities in the distribution of disaster relief and unregulated business practices may have profound consequences for the victims of disaster." [Author's abstract]