Press Trust of India Posted online: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 at 1351 hours IST
Houston, September 27: Barely four weeks after they fled New Orleans, many victims of hurricane Katrina housed in Texas shelters are having difficulties dealing emotionally with the disaster, particularly when another destructive hurricane Rita headed towards the state where they took refuge.
"Residents of shelters are anxious and scared when they have to deal with rain, or just water," says Nancy J Smyth, Dean of Social Work at University of Buffalo.
Smyth was in San Antonio recently to attend the National Deans and Directors of Social Work meeting, and volunteered to counsel hurricane victims staying at a local shelter.
"The folks I talked to said they were getting extremely anxious when it rained at all and were starting to have flashbacks of hurricane Katrina," she said.
"Unfortunately, evacuation conditions don't help. There's not much to do and the mind has nothing to focus on except what has happened," she added.
Mental health professionals have predicted that roughly one-third of evacuees will develop some sort of mental disorder as a result of their experiences.
According to Smyth, in addition to acute stress disorder and eventually post-traumatic stress disorder, many will also suffer from depression and other types of anxiety problems.
The stress of the disaster and evacuation also may trigger feelings related to losses and death that occurred before the hurricane, she said, with persons who suffered earlier losses at greater risk.
Communication continues to be a barrier to getting people the help they need, says Smyth. Talking with mental health personnel at the shelter, she learned that they had not been included in incident command meetings for the first two weeks, making their efforts more difficult.
