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Katrina and its aftermath
A number of faculty experts from the University of
Georgia are available to discuss a wide range of issues
related to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath– from gas prices
to livestock management to future planning for cities.
Following is a list of UGA experts available for commentary.
Media should feel free to call them directly.
Communicable diseases
According to Flynn Warren, clinical professor at the
College of Pharmacy at the University of Georgia, “The
health impact of water borne diseases and other communicable
diseases will be immense in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina. Wet homes will retain mold as a surface for
disease growth.” Warren was a pharmacist and
head of pharmacy services at King Faisal Specialist
Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia,
from 1977 to 1985. He received a bachelor of science
degree in pharmacy from the University of South Carolina
in 1964 and a master of science degree in hospital
pharmacy at UGA in 1970.
Flynn Warren, Jr., M.S.
Clinical professor and assistant dean for student affairs
College of Pharmacy
706-542-5273
FWARREN@mail.rx.uga.edu
Trauma in pets
"As a result of their experiences with a traumatic
event like Hurricane Katrina, many dogs and cats will
develop anxiety-based behavior disorders such as fear
of storms and fear of being separated from their human
caregivers. These problems are often treatable behavior
modification, environmental modification, sometimes
medication," said Dr. Sharon Crowell-Davis, an
animal behavior specialist at the University of Georgia's
College of Veterinary Medicine.
Sharon Crowell-Davis, DVM, Ph.D., Diplomate, American
College of Veterinary Behavior
Professor
College of Veterinary Medicine
706-542-8343
scrowell@vet.uga.edu
Southern culture and evacuation
“What we are seeing in the devastated coastal
communities is a fierce localism and attachment to
place acting in concert with a traditionally southern
fatalism in which the world is seen as hostile and
menacing place from which it is generally wiser to
expect the worst. The result is an expectation of struggle
as a natural part of life and a perception that life's
hardships and struggles are better borne at home, in
a familiar place among familiar people,” said
University of Georgia historian James Cobb. Cobb is
an expert in Southern history and wrote fairly extensively
about floods and flooding in the Delta, including the
big 1927 flood. His new book, AWAY DOWN SOUTH: A HISTORY
OF SOUTHERN IDENTITY is just out from Oxford University
Press.
James Cobb, Ph.D.
Professor
History Department, College of Arts and Sciences
706-376-6337
Literary Antecedents
According to Clay Morton, the Robert E. Park Fellow in
the University of Georgia's Department of English, Hurricane
Katrina may have a literary antecedent: "On the twenty-eighth
of August, at the hour of midnight, and if the moon is
shining—the moon must be shining—a spirit that has haunted
these shores [south of New Orleans] for ages rises up
from the Gulf." The quote comes from Kate Chopin's _The
Awakening_ which was published in 1899. The quote is
on page 75 of the Penguin edition. Morton is a specialist
in American literature. He teaches ENGL 2340: American
Literature after 1865.
Clay Morton, Ph.D.
Department of English
706-542-3392
cmorton@room343.english.uga.edu
Rebuilding and Real Estate
Carolyn Dehring is a professor in the Terry College's Department of Insurance,
Legal Studies and Real Estate whose research interests include land use regulations
and second homes. She recently completed a study concerning building regulations
and land prices on Florida's barrier islands. Her paper shows that increases
in the strictness/severity of building codes result in decreases land prices. "What
we do not know is whether such changes decrease the probability of damage," she
said. "There is a need for empirical studies to show whether building codes
designed to protect against severe weather events work." Dehring can also
comment on other issues regarding the economics of safety generally.
Carolyn A. Dehring, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Real Estate Program
Terry College of Business
706-542-3809
cdehring@terry.uga.edu
http://www.terry.uga.edu/realestate/faculty/dehring.html
Levee
construction
The current situation in New Orleans "is a tragic example of the
way certain engineering structures can mitigate many natural events,
but make things worse in extreme events," said Dr. C. Rhett Jackson,
Associate Professor of Hydrology at the University of Georgia's Warnell
School of Forest Resources. "They are able to hold a category 3
hurricane, but a category 4 storm creates a disaster."
"I bet the response after this will be to make
the levees bigger," Jackson continued, "but
there will always be natural events that come along
that engineering can not handle. I'm not saying they
did a bad job (constructing the existing levee system),
there will just always be something that overwhelms
existing structures."
"All the damaged and destroyed stuff is fixable," Jackson
concluded. "The logistical nightmare is what to
do with a million people as the long-term clean-up
process takes place."
C. Rhett Jackson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Hydrology
Warnell School of Forest Resources
706-542-1772 office
rjackson@forestry.uga.edu
Levee
System Electrical Pumps
Steve McCutcheon, a civil engineer with the University
of Georgia Faculty of Engineering, has done relief work
around the world and has studied the levee system in
New Orleans. He says, "Because we didn't get those
breaches closed, it probably cost a month in getting
essential services back. The pumping system there is
on an archaic electrical system, so when they lose their
local power grid for those pumps, it takes some time
to repair that grid and they can't just plug into the
normal grid that powers the local businesses and homes
down there."
Steve McCutcheon
Civil Engineer and Faculty Member
Faculty of Engineering
706-540-9951
Recovery of waterways
"Based on what has been seen in Puerto Rico, the
streams are resilient and will likely recover rapidly
(months)," said Alan Covich, Director, University
of Georgia Institute of Ecology. "The native species
in coastal rivers and streams have experienced many
hurricanes over ecological and evolutionary time scales.
The possibility for invasion by non-native species
is important to consider...but compared to the human
suffering, I doubt there will be a rush to monitoring
unless it relates to fish and shrimp production." Covich
has studied recovery of stream food webs in Puerto
Rico from two hurricanes (Hugo and Georges) since 1989.
Alan P. Covich, Ph.D.
Director and Professor
University of Georgia Institute of Ecology
706-542-6006 office
Price controls and free markets
Dwight Lee, director of the Ramsey Center for Private
Enterprise in the Terry College of Business at the
University of Georgia, calls artificial price controls “a
form of government censorship of communication between
suppliers and consumers. The markets are doing exactly
what they’re supposed to do,” Lee said. “But
people are going to look at it as being ripped off.”
Dwight Lee, Ph.D.
Ramsey Chair of Private Enterprise
706-542-3970 office
706-202-9549 cell
Price controls and free markets
“The high prices are painful,” said Bill
Lastrapes, head of the Economics Department at the
University of Georgia's Terry College of Business, “but
the price fluctuations serve a purpose and that is
to signal consumers that there is a scarcity in the
supply. It sounds unfeeling and uncaring, but we’ll
adjust our behavior and be much more likely to conserve
under these circumstances.
“People also tend to feel that there is price
gouging at work in moments like this, but that’s
the wrong assumption,” added Lastrapes. “Price
gouging only tends to happen if there’s no competition
in the marketplace, but we know that there are gas
stations on most every street corner. If there’s
competition like that, then the opportunity for price
gouging is minimal.
“To the extent that people can, wait out the
initial panic that’s going to follow the spiraling
prices until the market can find its equilibrium and
there’s more information about the damage assessment
in the gulf and how long it will take to restore the
gas supply,” suggests Bill Lastrapes, head of
the Economics Department at the University of Georgia's
Terry College of Business. He said consumers should
think about carpooling, cutting down on impulsive trips
to the grocery store for one or two items, and using
public transportation where available. Lastrapes is
an expert in the fields of empirical macroeconomics,
monetary economics, financial economics, and international
finance.
Bill Lastrapes, Ph.D.
Professor and head of the Department of Economics
706-542-3569 office
last@terry.uga.edu
Risk and insurance
“In Florida, the insurance industry did a very
aggressive job of reevaluating their concentration
of risk after Hurricane Andrew to ensure they were
not insuring too many properties in a concentrated
area” said Rob Hoyt, head of the Department of
Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies at the University
of Georgia's Terry College of Business. “They
also modified coverage on their policies so that homeowners
carried more of the risk. Those efforts were aimed
at avoiding situations where a very high percentage
of insurance coverage would be activated all at once
-- looked at what would be the maximum likely loss
they would incur in case of similar disasters -- how
many insurers should they accept in certain areas and
what arrangements do they have in place to reduce financial
impact i.e. reinsurance arrangements.
“Hurricane Katrina could conceivably bankrupt
some regional insurance firms who concentrate their
coverage in areas affected by the storm,” added
Hoyt. “Most states have insurance guaranty association
funded by mandatory contributions from insurance companies
to provide coverage in insolvency situations, but policies
issued by private insurance companies rarely cover
flood damage. The federal government does that through
FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program. A vast number
of houses destroyed by the storm were flooded, so those
homeowners are without coverage if they didn't buy
a NFIP policy. Nationwide only 25 percent of eligible
homeowners opt to buy federal flood insurance and the
percentage is even less than that among low income
groups. Those people will have to rely on state and
federal disaster relief programs.”
Hoyt’s research interests are focused in the
areas of corporate hedging, enterprise risk management,
the economics of insurance fraud, and insurer insolvency.
Robert E. Hoyt, Ph.D.
University of Georgia
706-542-4290 office
rhoyt@terry.uga.edu
Fuel prices
“Utility companies will be hurt somewhat with
a slight reduction in their share prices due to the
increased cost of power generation (petroleum products
like residual fuel oil will cost more, so demand increases
for substitutes like coal and natural gas, so the prices
of of these commodities goes up),” said Al Danielsen,
director of the Bonbright Center at the University
of Georgia's Terry College of Business at the University
of Georgia. “Overall, the crisis should subside
quickly with very little lasting effect, other than
some upward pressure on prices in the long term.
"This is a very short term problem. Severe to
be sure, but not catastrophic in a country of 280 million
people," said Al Danielsen, director of the Bonbright
Center at the University of Georgia's Terry College
of Business at the University of Georgia. “I
think the current gasoline price run up is mainly due
to a shortage of refinery capacity and the interruptions
caused by Katrina. The worst thing we could do would
be to impose price controls. This would simply cause
long lines and might result in other forms of rationing.
This price spike will subside quickly as the effects
of Katrina subside.
“The longer term price increases over the past
year for gasoline have been due to the higher price
of crude oil,” said Al Danielsen, director of
the Bonbright Center at the University of Georgia's
Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. “Crude
prices have increased about $10 per barrel in the last
few weeks. This alone would increase gasoline prices
by about $0.25 per gallon. The price spike we are seeing
today simply means the marketers (service stations)
are making a lot more. The price spike will also probably
cause some people to travel less and otherwise conserve
on their usage. Maybe more carpooling, but I doubt
if it will last. People are already planning to buy
smaller and more fuel efficient automobiles and I suspect
the current scare will convince more of us to drive
smaller cars.”
Dr. Danielsen conducts research and has published professional
articles and books related to market analysis and pricing.
Albert L. Danielsen, Ph.D.
Director, Bonbright Center
http://www.terry.uga.edu/bonbright
email: BonbrightCenter@aol.com
706-546-6517 office
706-202-2534 cell
Water treatment
“It's vital now in the immediate aftermath to suppress the propagation
of any disease, and it will be just as vital as the city starts to recover,” said
Bruce Beck, Professor and Eminent Scholar in the Environmental Informatics
and Control Program at the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forest
Resources. “I hear people talking of the crucial requirement for
drinking water. As so often happens in thinking about the water infrastructure
of cities -- emergency, temporary, or permanent -- it is too easy to overlook
the safe and hygienic handling of sewage and wastewater. Taking care of
the ‘downside’ of water in the city is every bit as essential
as taking care of the ‘upside’.”
Bruce Beck, Ph.D.
Wheatley-Georgia Research Alliance Professor and Eminent
Scholar
Environmental Informatics and Control Program
University of Georgia Warnell School of Forest Resources
706-542-0947
mbbeck@uga.edu
Animal health
“The tragedy along the Gulf Coast resulting from
Hurricane Katrina is a serious threat to human and animal
health,” said Sheila W. Allen, Interim Dean, College
of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia. “Domesticated
animals, both companion animal and farm animals, are
also without clean water and food. Many people chose
not to evacuate because they would not leave the animals
that were dependent upon them. Another impact of this
disaster is the destruction of habitats for wildlife
in the area. Veterinarians and animal health professionals
from the southeast are working together to set up shelters
for displaced companion and farm animals during the rescue
and relief efforts taking place along the Gulf Coast.”
Sheila W. Allen DVM, MS
Interim Dean
College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
706-542-3461
FAX 706-542-8254
sallen@vet.uga.edu
Future planning for cities
“Simulation modeling for disasters like hurricanes
can help state emergency management agencies train their
staff in decision making and timing of activities. The
topics covered in the computer simulation can include
evacuation versus shelter-in-place decisions, rescue
efforts, debris clearance, placement of recovery workers,
and economic impact/federal reimbursement.”
John O’Looney, faculty
member
Governmental Services Division
Carl Vinson Institute of Government
olooney@cviog.uga.edu
706-542-6210
Livestock recovery
The production effect on a cow/calf operation would
be a delayed effect. Since cows produce only one calf
per year, the income from a cow would be when the calf
is sold and that would vary from one operation to another.
The losses from Katrina would include loss of cattle
to death and run away, physical injury to cattle, loss
of food supply as the forages are covered with water,
damages to stored hay, mineral and supplemental feeds
are destroyed by Katrina. They would have damage to
infrastructure in buildings, fences, feeders and waters.
These losses could be significant. I would guess by
the video I have seen on TV that any cow/calf operation
within 5 to 10 mile of the coast from New Orleans to
Mobile would sustain nearly total loss of production.
The further from the coast the less production losses
but even in northern Mississippi they would have considerable
loss of forage production and hay due to the excess
rains and flooding.
The production effect on a dairy would be immediate
and devastating. They require confinement of the cattle
and a physical location to milk. Close to the coast
these structures would have been destroyed. They would
not be able to milk the cows. The result would be cows
with infected udders (mastitis) and over time the loss
of milk production completely from these cows. If you
are not able to milk the cows they dry-up and cease
producing milk until after they have their next calf.
These effects are in addition to all of the losses
mentioned above to the beef cattle. Dairy producers
would see a total loss of income from milk sales.
The effect on the communities would be related to the
loss of income from these operations. Each dollar of
gross income from a cattle production system results
in a 6-7 fold return to the community. These funds
would be lost to the communities serving theses dairies
and cow/calf producers.
Sanitation problems resulting from the contamination
of surface water by dead animals and fecal contamination
would be significant. Manure storage on dairies would
be washed into the surface water. This would compound
the problems related to human waste management facilities.
Those cattle that died as a result of Katrina would
be additional contamination of the surface water.
Veterinary practitioners would also be severely affected.
Their facilities, practice vehicles, drugs, equipment
could have all been destroyed by the storm. This would
make them unable to respond to animal and producer
needs.
Mel Pence DVM MS PAS Diplomate, ABVP (Beef Cattle)
Georgia Designated Johne’s Coordinator & Associate
Professor
The University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine
Veterinary Diagnostic and Investigational Laboratory
229-386-3340
mepence@uga.edu
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