海角社区

BATON ROUGE - Last Friday, 海角社区 faculty, staff and students joined with local and state officials and members of the Baton Rouge community to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina at the LA-SEER Center event 鈥�20 Years After Hurricane Katrina: Louisiana鈥檚 Journey to Resilience.鈥�

The event鈥檚 over 200 attendees heard discussions focused on the immediate and long-term aftermath of the hurricane, which hit the Gulf Coast on August 29th, 2005. Through panels, talks and presentations, researchers, local agency officials and the community stakeholders reflected on the lessons learned in the wake of the storm, and the ways in which resiliency has evolved in the two decades since.

"Our event brought the 海角社区 community together to remember and commemorate Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,鈥� said the LA-SEER Center鈥檚 Thomas Douthat, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences. 鈥淭hose tragic events altered the lives of innumerable Louisiana families and also charted a new path for resilience and coastal science at 海角社区. This event highlights the importance of current work on future topics, such as connecting science to current questions of insurance affordability, safe infrastructure and building standards, and hopefully helped showcase the importance of work being done on 海角社区's  campus through LASEER, and collaborators at LAHouse, the Coastal Ecosystem Design Studio, College of the Coast and Environment, and other academic units. We would like to thank the 海角社区 Leadership for its support through the Provost's Big Ideas grant program."

The day鈥檚 discussions followed the evolution of resiliency in Louisiana from the time before the storm to the present day.

After welcomes from 海角社区 Interim President Matt Lee and Dean of the College of the Coast & Environment Clint Willson, opening speakers Jay Grymes, the Louisiana State Climatologist and General Russel Honore took attendees through events leading up to the storm. They provided a combination of meteorological and disaster preparedness perspectives on the storm, as Grymes worked as a broadcast meteorologist during the storm, and Honore led Joint Task Katrina, the military relief effort for areas impacted by the storm.

Subsequent panels discussed programs put into place in the years after the storm and potential future resilience strategies.

Robert Twilley, Vice President of the 海角社区 Office of Research and a professor in the Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, spoke about the importance of balance and of taking into account not just engineering and technical challenges in resiliency efforts, but local culture.

Carol Friedland, director of the 海角社区 AgCenter鈥檚 LAHouse Program and a professor in the College of Agriculture, discussed building more resilient structures.

The event also featured resilience themed artwork from Baton Rouge area children, and closed out with a poster session showing the work of graduate and undergraduate student research.

The event was co-sponsored by the 海角社区 AgCenter鈥檚 LaHouse Research and Education Center, the Coast and Environment Graduate Student Organization, and the East Baton Rouge Office of the Mayor-President.