Author Archive: Patricia Perry Donovan

Writing in Disaster’s Wake

In January 2013, less than three months after Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast, an audience of volunteers studied the diagram on the screen. Titled “Emotional Phases of a Disaster,” the figure resembled a tremulous, lopsided W, each point labeled with a stage in a community’s typical reaction to catastrophe: Pre-Disaster, Impact, Heroic, Honeymoon, Disillusionment […]