Lessons in Resilience: LSU Professor Reflects on How Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Impacted Social Work Students
July 24, 2025
Twenty years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast, LSU School of Social Work professor Catherine Lemieux is reflecting on her research that shed light on students’ living and giving in the aftermath of the storms.
Catherine M. Lemieux
Lemieux was part of a team of social work researchers from four different universities in the Gulf states that were directly impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The focus of their research was on social work students and how they reacted to and coped with the devastation.
“It was impossible to separate the disasters because less than one month had elapsed between Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,” Lemieux said. “We sought to explore and describe students’ self-reported experiences and perceptions of both disasters.”
Lemieux and her team accomplished this by using a voluntary, confidential, 16-page survey, administered three months after Hurricane Rita. In addition to asking students about their depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, the survey was unique as it asked about their positive experiences, such as religiosity, strength of faith, optimism, and hope.
“To the best of my knowledge, we were the only team that received responses from 400+ social work students using a survey that collected information about the positive aspects of the experiences of post-disaster victims,” Lemieux said.
From the survey responses, Lemieux and her team found that depression rates were higher among African American students, PTSD symptoms were more pervasive among all students who had experienced a previous traumatic event, and many social work students directly affected by the storms reported high rates of participation in a range of volunteer activities.
For many students, volunteering became both a coping mechanism and a way to contribute to the recovery of their communities, Lemieux said.
“The vast majority of social work students were directly affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. However, in addition to donating their time, services, and money, students reported very high rates of volunteerism, both skilled (providing counseling to or assisting shelter evacuees) and unskilled (helping with post-hurricane cleanup or sharing their home with those displaced by the hurricanes),” she said.
Lemieux said this showed that students who endured negative impacts may have been more motivated to help others facing similar hardships, and for many students, volunteering became both a coping mechanism and a way to contribute to the recovery of their communities.
Due to the lack of adequate planning and contingency measures, particularly in areas surrounding the levees, Lemieux said the storms revealed critical, intersecting lessons. Chief among them: Never underestimate the role of politics during a crisis and always recognize the value of gratitude.
“Most Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims did not comply with mandatory evacuation orders because they were living in impoverished and severely under-resourced communities,” Lemieux said. “As the rest of the country watched in horror as the disaster aftermath unfolded on national media, the most common question was, ‘Why didn’t they just leave?’ The answer was that they couldn’t leave.”
Hurricane Katrina did force changes to policy at the federal level.
“Environmental justice, which is closely linked to disaster research findings, has been articulated in the most recent agendas of national social work and psychology organizations, along with directives to practitioners to advocate with and on behalf of affected communities,” she said.
Today, Lemieux incorporates her Katrina and Rita research into her teaching.
“It is important for students to understand the importance of gratitude when reading about disaster-related research and being thankful to those who have been displaced yet have taken the time to administer and complete questionnaires, including fellow faculty and students,” Lemieux said.
These lessons are also applied to that workforce when Lemieux shares her expertise with social work field supervisors.
“I’ve asked them to ask additional questions when their supervisees tell them that they’re ‘burning out’ (a process that takes years and years to manifest), because what students most likely are experiencing is secondary traumatic stress, a condition wherein symptoms are exacerbated with continued exposure to traumatic events.”
Taking what she has learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Lemieux prepares students to respond to future disasters by emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and self-care.
“Social work students in the field who have been negatively affected by the disaster and are simultaneously providing disaster-related mental health services to community members are especially vulnerable,” Lemieux said. “Self-awareness is a crucial tool that helps students identify and manage symptoms of traumatic stress, and self-care is critical for effective practice.”
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