ABSTRACT
A theatre of local resources builds on people and traditions present and able to respond to social calls. The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts, as what one person adds summons a contribution from someone else. The need to act locally in New Orleans was catalyzed by Hurricane Katrina, which pushed already fragile neighborhoods into crisis. Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans (and the Gulf Coast) on August 29, 2005, leaving 80% of the city under water by August 31. The cause of most of the flooding was not the storm itself, but rather the storm surge, responsible for breaches in over 50 drainage and navigational canal levees and precipitating the worst engineering disaster in US history (American Society of Civil Engineers 2007). The level of infrastructural neglect beforehand that accounted for Katrina’s damage was equaled by the level of unresponsiveness on the part of local, state, and national government after it occurred.
