Rebuilding lives after the headlines fade
Top image: Lori Peek with participants in the SHOREline program
CU şů«ÍŢĘÓƵ researcher Lori Peek emphasizes that the impact of natural disasters can be multiplicative
Six-year-old Samantha’s new ballet slippers, ready for her first dance class, sat untouched as Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans in 2005. Five years later, another disaster—the Deepwater Horizon oil spill—compounded her family’s challenges.
“Losing everything and having to start over, that has happened to me so many times, it just feels like I lost my childhood,” she reflected when talking with Lori Peek, şů«ÍŢĘÓƵ Department of Sociology professor.
CU şů«ÍŢĘÓƵ researcher Lori Peek (center) with participants in the Gulf Coast-based youth empowerment program called , which she co-created and that was designed to make fundamental changes in the lives of youth and their communities, including reducing inequality before and after natural disasters.
Stories like Samantha’s illuminate a deeper truth: The harm caused by disasters doesn’t fade when the news cycle moves on. Hers is one of many stories Peek has heard while conducting research for more than a decade in the Gulf Coast region.
Peek, who also serves as director of CU şů«ÍŢĘÓƵ’s , has dedicated her career to understanding how disasters shape the lives of children and families.
Out of the spotlight, families across the country are fighting against systemic challenges, emotional tolls and inadequate support to get their lives back on track. Peek’s research focuses not just on immediate devastation, but also on the long road to recovery that so many disaster survivors must travel.
The compounding effects of disaster
Most natural hazards leave visible scars when they sweep across a landscape—flooded homes, shattered schools and shuttered businesses. Peek’s ethnographic approach reveals the experiences of people and the hidden struggles they face while navigating the aftermath of major disasters.
Her long-term, collaborative research along the Gulf Coast, recently highlighted in a Journal of Child and Family Studies article titled “,” underscores how compounded disasters can upend entire communities for decades.
“One disaster can obviously wreak havoc on a young person’s life,” Peek explains. “But now we are living in an age of extremes, where families and communities may be affected by multiple disasters in a relatively short period.
“The impact of these events isn’t additive—it’s multiplicative.”
Peek’s longitudinal study of Gulf Coast children illustrated this phenomenon. After , countless families were just beginning to rebuild their lives when the Deepwater Horizon spill once again devastated local economies and ecosystems.
Children like Samantha, Peek notes, are particularly vulnerable in such contexts. They absorb not only the immediate chaos of a disaster but also the long-term stress of financial insecurity, familial upheaval, displacement and disrupted support systems.
Peek and her co-authors use the term “toxic stress” to describe this chronic strain. Its effects can lead to serious health and developmental challenges that persist for years—or a lifetime.
Lori Peek, a CU şů«ÍŢĘÓƵ professor of sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center, conducts fieldwork with a child after Hurricane Katrina; the child was later affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill as well.
Samantha’s story isn’t isolated. Rather, it’s one of many narratives underscoring the profound sense of loss that lingers long after the immediate crisis concludes.
Peek believes these stories must be heard and addressed if communities and families are to build resilience against future disasters.
“Until relatively recently, the recovery phase of disaster was the most understudied,” she says. “That started to change after Katrina. But now we are in a new era, where disasters are becoming more severe and intense, and communities are being hit more often.”
This not only makes studying disasters more complicated, but it also can lead to recovery resources being averted just when they are needed most, she adds.
The role of support systems
Peek’s research emphasizes that recovering from a disaster cannot be an individual journey. Robust support systems are necessary.
“For children to recover from disasters, they need support from their family members, peers, teachers and broader community. Strong institutions—such as stable housing, quality health care and safe schools—are equally crucial,” she says.
Yet many children lack these foundational supports even before disaster strikes, Peek notes. When a catastrophe does occur, it magnifies pre-existing inequalities, and vulnerable families often find themselves in even more precarious situations.
On the bright side, Peek says, “disasters can be catalysts for change. But only if recovery funding is targeted toward the people and places that need it most.”
A call to action
Peek’s findings highlight the imperative to ensure that recovery efforts reduce inequalities both before and after disasters occur. She co-created a Gulf Coast-based youth empowerment program called that was designed to make such fundamental changes in the lives of youth and their communities.
By bringing together policymakers, educators and community leaders, Peek aims to create frameworks that protect communities before the next disaster strikes.
She also emphasizes the importance of not just studying disaster recovery but acting before communities are devastated by the next hurricane, flood or wildfire. To achieve this, Peek advocates for policies that prioritize equity and resilience, emphasizing the need for long-term planning and cross-sector collaboration.
"One disaster can obviously wreak havoc on a young person’s life. But now we are living in an age of extremes, where families and communities may be affected by multiple disasters in a relatively short period."
“Recovery frameworks are still designed as if a single disaster is affecting a place, and as if recovery is occurring in a neat, stepwise fashion. That’s simply not the reality.”
Through her work, Peek hopes to reshape how communities and policymakers approach disaster recovery. As Samantha’s story reminds us, disasters leave marks that linger far beyond the headlines. The disruption of her childhood dreams reveals a profound need for systems that protect society’s most vulnerable.
With the right support, Peek notes, children like Samantha can regain their footing and even thrive in the aftermath of disaster.
Peek’s vision for the future—one where no child’s dreams are washed away by hurricanes or tarnished by oil spills— enters on resilient communities safeguarded by robust support systems and programs that address systemic issues rooted in poverty and racial inequality.
“If we can use the small windows for change opened by disasters to make progress in reducing—rather than exacerbating—inequality and suffering, that would be a real win for current and future generations.”
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