New Orleans is experiencing a wave of looting, but it is likely the work of a fraction of the people stranded, researchers who study looting behavior said Thursday.
At the same time, federal officials ordered 16,000 more National Guard troops into the city to restore order.
Television images of looters walking away with plasma televisions and boxes of new shoes don’t capture the real situation, said Benigno Aguirre of the University of Delaware Disaster Research Center.
“My sense is that most of the people are going about their business and are trying to follow, more or less, what the authorities are telling,” Aguirre said. “The looting that is taking place is very limited. I’m sure we see over and over again the same pictures. ”
Kathleen Tierney, director of the University of Colorado’s Natural Disaster Center in Boulder, said that a focus on looting could distract officials from more serious problems.
“I mean, there are premature babies that need evacuation,” Tierney said. “What’s more important, the life of a baby or the fact that someone is stealing a case of beer?”
News reports seem to suggest that looting in New Orleans is increasing, said Walter Peacock, director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University.
“Most of it, especially in the beginning, I would call resource procurement, rather than looting,” Peacock said. “I mean, the classic picture is a guy with two big bags full of Pampers. To me, that is not looting.”
As the lack of food, water and power has persisted in New Orleans, however, more true theft may have begun, he said.
Peacock studied looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and found that most people, including officials, overestimated the actual crime. Even when polled during normal times, most people have an exaggerated sense of crime frequency, Peacock said. “These things frighten people,” he said.
Tierney compared excessive concern about looting during disasters to people’s fears about “mob mentality,” where people who observe criminal behavior join in, followed by more and more.
Such a phenomenon has never been documented,Tierney said. Excessive media use of a few pictures or video clips can give the impression of total lawlessness, she said.
“Here we go again,” Tierney said. “Civilization being ripped apart, people returning to the animals we really are. I’m sick of it. These people are disaster victims. They deserve our compassion.”
Aguirre is organizing a team of researchers to study looting in New Orleans within a few weeks, he said. The scientists will pore over police reports, talk with community organizers and knock on doors in neighborhoods where looting was alleged, and ask local people what happened.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or at khuman@denverpost.com.
