The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of gathering places in disaster recovery, and describe types of active gathering places where residents and aid workers in Southern Texas, USA, came seeking resources, information and emotional support one month after Hurricane Harvey.
Semi-structured interviews in the field with 81 residents and 44 aid workers identified active gathering places and their functions. Researchers utilized a snowball sample design to identify and visit further gathering places until saturation. Field observations and a regional damage survey conducted by car add further context to interview data.
In total, 22 distinct types of gathering places were identified from the 123 unique gathering places documented. Overall, the displacement of residents created an obstacle to their recovery and access to resources and gathering places; residents characterized a lack of formalized emotional support centers – primarily relying on informal gatherings with friends and neighbors to meet their needs; and gathering places were limited in their ability to foster a communal recovery among the residents.
This study addresses a gap in the research, focusing on where and how individuals access resources, information and emotional support in the short-term recovery following a disaster event. This research combines two traditions, hazards geography and disaster sociology, to investigate what gathering places exist one month after a major disaster, where those places are located, and what purpose they serve.
