Summary
Julie Elliott, a PhD student from the University of Delaware studying collaborative disaster management, decided long ago that if there were a significant disaster in her home state of Texas, she would deploy to witness the recovery response firsthand. Here’s how her fieldwork experience will impact her approach to teaching emergency management at the University of North Texas.
Hill Country Flood Recovery Leaves Mark on UNT Professor, Shaping How She’ll Teach Disaster Response
When doctoral candidate and University of North Texas professor Julie Elliott deployed to Kerrville for her emergency management research on July 10, she knew she was walking into a still very active search-and-rescue operation.
Days prior, copious rainfall triggered flash flooding in the Hill Country of Texas. The Guadalupe River rose over two dozen feet in less than an hour.
More than 130 people died, and hundreds were reported missing at the time. It was all hands on deck to recover and rescue the flood victims across a 100-mile search area.
“As soon as I got there, there was evidence of that,” Elliott said. “Just first responders everywhere. Helicopters. Boats in the water. I know that missing number has dropped quite a bit. But when I was there, it was still a really, really high number.”
Local, national and international nonprofits were setting up donation centers, disaster recovery centers and a mass feeding site for both survivors and the large number of first responders.
As a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Delaware, Elliott is working on her doctoral dissertation about collaborative disaster management before, during and after a disaster.
“I’m fascinated by what drives people to help,” Elliott said. “Altruism is just so interesting to me because oftentimes there is no return on that investment. There’s no monetary return. There’s no substantive thing you get back. But people still want to give and want to contribute.”
The story continues in the Denton Record-Chronicle.
