Abstract
On August 29, 2021, Hurricane Ida’s…Category 4 winds and torrential rain left the Louisiana coastline badly beaten.” (NPR, 2021). New Orleans lost all power and for “More than one million residents … it is unclear when power will be restored…it may last more than a month… “(NPR, 2021). New Orleans experienced high heat and humidity during and after Ida. Previous researchers reported on disaster preparedness at facilities (Chandrasekera and Hebert, 2019) and power disruptions’ effects on facilities (Restrepo and Zimmerman, 2001). Hebert (2015) examined the effects of Hurricane Sandy on a Smithsonian Museum. Rodrigue (2003) performed a content analysis of newspaper articles following the September 11th disaster. Franz, et al. (2019) manually analyzed Facebook posts and developed a research methodology utilizing Facebook. Power outages may cause damage to museum artifacts during hot and humid weather when air conditioning fails. Current researchers examined how museum facilities prepared for, withstood, and reopened after Hurricane Ida using social media. Researchers explored how 14 New Orleans area museums were affected by Ida. Researchers “followed” museums on Twitter and accessed August 28 to September 28, 2021 posts, via Nvivo software. They utilized keywords in content analysis, i.e., aftermath, disaster, flood, hurricane, Ida, power, and storm. Researchers found that all studied museums closed facilities due to Ida. “Hurricane” keywords were found to exhibit the highest frequencies across museums. Facility impacts and reopening times varied. Social media was a cost-effective and unobtrusive way of studying museums subjected to a hurricane as data could be collected online.
Presenters
Zahrasadat HosseiniStudent, Master, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma, United States Paulette R. Hebert
Professor, Design and Merchandising, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
2022 Special Focus—Rethinking the Museum
KEYWORDS
Disaster, Hurricane, Social Media, Power Failure, New Orleans, Twitter
