Sociologist Who Studied the Collective Trauma of Disaster

An expert in natural and man-made catastrophes, he said Hurricane Katrina was 'far and away the most telling disaster of our national experience.'

- BY JON MOOALLEM

In 1973, Yale sociologist Kai T. Erikson got a phone call from an attorney, asking him to recommend a graduate student who could consult on a class-action lawsuit in West Virginia coal country. The previous February, 132 million gallons of black,