The Role of Perception in Crisis Management A Tale of Two Hurricanes

Bolanle A. Olaniran is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas. The anticipatory model of crisis management (Olaniran & Williams, 2001; Scholl, Williams, & Olaniran, 2005) draws the attention of crisis practitioners and researchers to the precrisis phase of crisis management. The model views institutions’ position as a condition that has implications for peoples’ perceptions regarding the lack of control over factors such as policies, human resources, machineries or technologies, infrastructure, and relationship structure. The concept of control is germane in crisis management and must be established in crisis decisionmaking with vigilance. The anticipatory model fosters vigilant decision-making in precrisis, during crisis and postcrisis although the primary emphasis with the anticipatory model is on crisis prevention altogether. The anticipatory model is considered useful when evaluating crises relating to the management of hurricane Katrina and hurricane Rita that ripped through the Gulf Coast in the southern part of the United States within three weeks of each other. Almost two years later, the impact of the disaster is still being felt deeply by those whose lives were directly affected and stakeholders who have their opinions on what went wrong and what could have been done. The devastation to the Gulf Coast by these two hurricanes has been called “the greatest disaster” in U.S. history (Jackson, 2006; Swenson & Marshall, 2005). This discussion explores hurricanes Katrina and Rita as two crises where both perception and construction of realities differed partly because of how and The Role of Perception in Crisis Management