Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Emotional Devastation of Katrina Rising

The government is going to provide millions of dollars for counseling Katrina & Rita survivors, displaced citizens, and relief workers. After all, this should be kept quiet.


Quotes from the March 17, 2006 Los Angeles Times article: "Emotional Toll of Katrina Is Still Rising" by Stephanie Simon:

"NEW ORLEANS — Dispersed across the nation, survivors of Hurricane Katrina are suffering such severe psychological distress that the federal government has launched the broadest — and probably the most costly — counseling program in the nation's history.

An estimated 500,000 people need some form of mental health service, which could include treatment for post-traumatic stress, substance abuse counseling, anti-anxiety medication, even art therapy for children too young to talk out their grief."

"In New Orleans, even those trained to offer solace break down easily and often: A hospital nurse, a school psychologist, a paramedic, a counselor all lose composure as they talk about Katrina.

"The truth is, we are not OK. We are so definitely not OK," said Burke Beyer, 31, who leads a federally funded team of counselors in New Orleans.

Experts knew from the start that Katrina would be traumatic. The storm killed more than 1,300 people, submerged 80% of New Orleans, flattened neighborhoods and forced friends and relatives apart. But the scope of the mental health crisis is only now emerging."

"A recent student survey there had uncovered overwhelming anxiety. Asked how they were feeling, kindergarteners drew frowning faces dripping tears. Second- and third-graders wrote down their fears:

"I'm worried that I will never see my family again."

"Katrina threw my house somewhere."

"My cat is gone."

"My friends are gone forever."

"What will we do? Where will we go?"

To the gentle rhythm of classical music, counselor Nikky Redpath led a kindergarten class through half an hour of art therapy. When she asked them to draw any emotion they wished, five of the 15 kids drew "scared," illustrated by the dark, angry swirls of a hurricane.

At the next session, Redpath asked fourth-graders to draw something they had lost.

They drew teddy bears, pets and, above all, houses: Perfect squares with triangular roofs and chimneys puffing smoke and flowers by the front door.

"I had a big old window right here," one girl said, reaching for a crayon.

"Have you seen your house? How is it?" another counselor asked a boy.

Still sketching, he answered: "It's bad."

When they gathered in a circle to share their drawings, several students could not talk. They held up their pictures in silence."

Now the Federal government is going to provide millions of dollars for counseling to the survivors of Hurricanes Katrina & Rita, the levee failures, and the victims of this country's systematic abandonment of relief. I am a disaster mental health worker.

The horror of Katrina and Rita only grows. The bureaucratic "barriers" from relief work are nothing short of despicable. FEMA recently began the eviction process that will swell to over 150,000 displaced residents from hotel rooms they were "allowed" to stay-in. It took court interventions to extend the planned stay. 1,800 homes were offered to survivors, but every effort was made to block access to them. I met with a former colleague in Greenville, Mississippi, and traveled through Hurricane Rita to get there, because he had a 225,000 square foot facility that he wanted to convert into residences for the survivors (he wanted my help with developing a recovery program). However, he could not get a relief contract.

These American citizens have no homes to return to; mud and oil saturate the remnants of their homes. They have no records, tax documents, bank statements, clothes, pictures, appliances, tools, etc. Of course, 60,000 thousand trailers are available, yet no one will take the lead, get them set up, and people in them. What are these people supposed to do? What's more, tens of thousands of survivors have roamed the northeastern area above New Orleans and southeastern region of Mississippi without housing since the disaster struck nearly six months ago. Hurricane season is almost here. Perhaps the evicted can join those who haven't had a roof over their heads in six months and have a giant scavenger hunt.

I'm a psychologist and volunteer in disaster mental health relief. I've worked with over 15,000 survivors of Katrina, and was in Hurricane Rita while providing psychological services. Instead of relief or recovery, now let's counsel some 200,000 abandoned, displaced American citizens and see if we can talk them out of feeling bad about it.

In 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was brutally stabbed while 38 New York City residents watched and did nothing to save her. Social psychologists have used this horrible scenario as a metaphor for passive crowd behavior, i.e., the amazing situation where people will essentially ignore something awful happening to fellow human beings nearby.

American citizens on our own soil need our help, our advocacy, and our intolerance of media/political avoidance and denial. Yet Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the man-made levee failure may become American society's version of Kitty Genovese.


www.commoncause.org
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021000267.html
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030101731.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html?hp&ex=1139634000&en=914abcf6c2b5fc5a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html
http://www.hrw.org/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801681.html


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9729481/site/newsweek














www.commoncause.org
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html
http://www.hrw.org/



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072800649.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072800649_Technorati.html

posted by Katrina RRMs at 1:20 PM 2 comments