(BP) – Among the 500,000 people who evacuated Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama because of Hurricane Katrina a year ago, about 11 percent now have severe mental illness compared with 6 percent before the storm, according to the first study of its kind sponsored by the federal government.
(BP) – Among the 500,000 people who evacuated Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama because of Hurricane Katrina a year ago, about
11 percent now have severe mental illness compared with 6 percent
before the storm, according to the first study of its kind sponsored by
the federal government.
USA Today reported Aug. 29 that nearly 20 percent of Katrina evacuees
said they had mild to moderate mental illness, compared with less than
10 percent before.
About 15 percent of residents of the counties and parishes struck by
Katrina have depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and
other forms of mental illness, USA Today said, which is twice as many
as before.
Even so, fewer people reported they were considering suicide than
before the storm, the newspaper noted, which may reflect a hope in the
ability to start over.
“We did a study in Miami after Hurricane Andrew,” psychiatrist Eugenio
Rothe of the University of Miami told USA Today. “The first year,
people were busy getting through the day, rebuilding, getting their
lives back in order. Then it hits them how much they’ve lost. They
start mourning their losses.”
Almost 90 percent of survey respondents said their storm experiences
helped them develop a deeper sense of meaning in life, and more than 75
percent said they had become more spiritual or religious.
Joe McKeever, director of missions for the Greater New Orleans Baptist
Association, told Baptist Press mental illness is confusing to
diagnose.
“If one is depressed for a day, is he mentally ill? How about for a
week? And how severe does sadness or the blues have to be in order to
be classified as depression?” McKeever asked. “In our city, there’s no
question where the floodwaters came because the houses still carry the
dirty yellow lines left by silty deposits from the rising water. But
the humans do not carry those lines except on their souls. On the
outside, we all look like we’re functioning and making it. On the
inside, some are whole and some aren’t. But it’s hard to tell.”
McKeever said he reads reports such as the one that appeared in USA
Today with a grain of salt because “it’s depressing living inside New
Orleans right now.”
“I’m not even saying the numbers are wrong. Just that it’s hard to
tell. We’re not talking about an exact science here, but the
ever-fluctuating status of people’s minds and hearts. And knowing my
own mind, it’s one thing this morning and another this afternoon,” he
said.