Powerful Feelings

Emotions and Governmentality in Disaster Research

It is the summer of 2013, and I have driven two hours from my home in Carbondale to Valmeyer, Illinois, to speak with Lou Ann Simmons, a woman in her early sixties whose house was inundated during the Great Flood of 1993. The Great Flood is considered one of the costliest disasters in U.S. history. The catastrophe resulted from the interaction of human development and settlement patterns in the Midwest during the preceding century, the people's alterations to the hydrology of the region's major river systems, and the unusually high precipitation levels from the fall of 1992 to the summer of 1993. The flood catastrophically affected nine states, caused financial losses estimated at $20 billion, destroyed or damaged five thousand homes, and displaced fifty-four thousand people (Brown, Baker, and Friday 1994).

Following the catastrophe, the majority of Valmeyer's residents relocated their homes out of the Mississippi floodplain to higher ground on the bluffs overlooking the river a little more than a mile away. On this occasion, I am accompanied by a fellow disaster researcher who is conducting a series of interviews with people whose communities have resettled after such events and one of my undergraduate students who is working as an assistant in the project. We are going to talk to Lou Ann because we are interested in why she opted out of the resettlement and chose to remain and live in the floodplain, well within what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designated as the hundred-year flood line (an area that has a 1 percent annual chance of flooding). A handful of families have stayed, and rather than being situated within a town of 1,200 people, their houses today are surrounded by grassland and the occasional lonely tree.

Lou Anne's house is a white, two-story Victorian with a porch that has various pieces of wicker furniture arranged for people to sit on and visit. She invites us to join her on the porch, and we begin a conversation about her experiences during the flood and her decision not to resettle. As the sun hangs low on the horizon, Lou Ann brings out personal photo albums and shows us images of the porch we are sitting on under eight feet of water. As we speak, it becomes clear that the flood is a defining moment in her life, not only because of the trauma and material loss she suffered during the event itself, but also because of the dramatic transformation of the social and material landscape of her community that she experiences on a daily basis. One thing that impresses her today is how quiet the floodplain is now that most of her neighbors have moved up to the bluffs. In response to our question of why she stayed, Lou Ann explains that owning and living in a house such as hers was her lifelong dream and that she could not separate herself from it:

I always wanted a white, two-story house, with a porch. I always wanted to sit outside and see my neighbors go by and talk to them. (structured interview transcription 2013)

Lou Ann makes it clear that, for her, the value of this particular house, with its specific distribution of space (a porch to sit on, two stories), extends well beyond its functionality. She also indicates that the house's worth was once also related to its situation in a web of social relations with her neighbors. The residence has a porch that was, in the past, conducive to having casual conversations with other town residents. The homes built in New Valmeyer (as the relocation community is known), in contrast, do not have porches; they are constructed on slabs and are "right on top of each other" (structured interview transcription 2013). The spatial distribution of the new village is also not conducive to people walking through its streets. The place feels more like a big city suburb, with its winding roads leading to cul-de-sacs rather than following a small-town grid.

Lou Ann explains:

The new town is nice; it just reminds me of a big subdivision — everything is very similar, nothing is unique about it. Some of the houses down here were two or three stories, just beautiful houses, and people were scared. I'm sure they had no structural damage; they just didn't want to go through it again. ... For the ones who I talk to up there, they have regretted leaving. It's not the same as it was down here. I don't regret it at all [staying in the floodplain], not one bit. I love it down here. This is just so quiet, and you get used to it. There's nothing here. There used to be a grocery store in town; the bank, the post office, the hardware — you could walk to whatever you wanted. You get used to it, you learn to make your stops all at one time. (structured interview transcription 2013)

Lou Ann is aware that her house may flood again. She tells us how vigilant she is, keeping an eye on the Mississippi River's level, hoping. She tells us that if her home floods again, that will be it; and she will not come back, for she is too old to rebuild. But until that happens, she will remain living in her dream house, remembering how things used to be when she could sit on her porch and greet her neighbors.

On our drive back to Carbondale, my colleague wants to discuss our conversation with Lou Ann. He brings up the concept of cognitive dissonance, pointing out that what is in Lou Ann's head (her ideal notions of home and community) does not register with the fact that she lives in an area of high flood risk where her own life and that of others (e.g., emergency response personnel who may be called upon to rescue her in case of flooding) may be in danger. My colleague makes a number of allusions to mental health, wondering whether Lou Ann's connection to reality has been compromised by dementia. "How can she not see the danger? Is she crazy?" my colleague asked (fieldnotes 2013).

In response to these questions, I propose that we give Lou Ann the anthropological benefit of the doubt for a moment and that we try not to proceed from the point of departure that we researchers, with our notions of risk and moral responsibility, are right and that Lou Ann, who is engaged in a practice we find irrational, is wrong. What if we were to take what Lou Ann is saying seriously and not dismiss it as cognitive dissonance? What if she cannot make her emotional...