Disastrous Rites: Liminality and Communitas in a Flood Crisis

A sense of communitas, well noted by social scientists, occurs in human societies during times of natural disaster. Using the Red River Valley Flood of 1997 as a case example, it is found that disaster communitas has similarities to ritual communitas specifically because people consciously ritualize and mythologize their actions during disaster. While this sacralization of practical action serves to optimize disaster response, it also creates an expanded sense of self, community, and purpose that can leave many survivors of disaster with a sense that they have undergone a profoundly meaningful peak experience.