[StBernard] Cry for Katrina's kids

[Westley Annis]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/08/22/katrinas_kids/print.html 


Cry for Katrina's kids 


As hurricane season returns, experts see a rising tide of mental health 
problems among the Gulf Coast's neglected youth. 


 By Tracy Clark-Flory 
 Aug. 22, 2006 | 
Psychologist Paula Madrid says that the experience of one 
of her young patients from New Orleans is all too common. 
The 13-year-old girl has entertained thoughts of suicide 
since Hurricane Katrina sent rapidly rising floodwaters 
through St. Bernard Parish, forcing her family of six onto 
the roof of a neighbor's home where for two days they waited 
hand-in-hand in the heat for rescue. Before a helicopter 
took the three kids to safety, they watched their uncle drown 
in the floodwaters. 


 The girl was bussed to Dallas, while her brothers, ages 
8 and 12, were sent to the Astrodome in Houston. It was 
two weeks before they saw their parents again. The family 
then spent the next few weeks crammed in a hotel room with 
eight strangers, sometimes camping out in a tent and sharing 
a small pizza for dinner. After the father started abusing 
alcohol, the mother took the kids to live in a two-bedroom 
house in Baton Rouge, La., with seven other family members. 


 It was five months before the girl (whose name remains 
confidential under doctor-client privilege) received 
professional help to deal with her anguish. 


According to Madrid, who is director of the Resiliency 
Program at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness 
in New York, the girl's story is emblematic of what mental 
health professionals are seeing with children across the 
Gulf region, leaving them deeply concerned for "Katrina's 
kids" a year after the disaster. 


 Mental health experts agree that the scope of the damage, 
a lethargic rescue effort, and a still tentative recovery 
process have combined to make Hurricane Katrina uniquely 
damaging to children. After the trauma of the initial deluge, 
many spent days amid the terrifying pandemonium of the 
overstuffed Superdome, endured months of suitcase living, 
moved between family members' homes, FEMA trailers and hotels, 
and missed out on long periods of school. In essence, many 
of them remained in a suspended state of crisis that lasted 
months. 


 Even child psychologists who have extensive experience 
working with kids after natural disasters like hurricanes, 
floods and wildfires say Katrina's toll was unnerving. 
"I've never experienced being on the ground and seeing 
and hearing that degree of devastation and human despair," 
said Russell Jones, a psychology professor at Virginia 
Tech University and consultant for the National Child 
Traumatic Stress Network. In his eight visits to the Gulf 
region since Katrina, Jones said he encountered kids who 
had trouble eating and sleeping, exhibited hyper-vigilance, 
and seemed constantly in anticipation of an imminent disaster. 


 Recent studies have made clear that Katrina's emotional 
toll on kids has been severe. In July, Louisiana State 
University researchers presented findings from a screening 
of 4,000 children in the region: One-third showed signs 
of depression, while a third showed signs of full-blown 
post-traumatic stress disorder. A survey of 665 households 
released in April by Columbia University and the Children's 
Health Fund, a not-for-profit organization focused on 
medically underserved children, found that almost half of 
parents living in FEMA-subsidized housing reported a child 
who developed emotional or behavioral problems after the storm. 


 And estimates of the long-term toll are even more bleak. 
According to four child psychologists who spoke with Salon, 
based on standard models for forecasting the development 
of PTSD after exposure to trauma, at least 8 percent of the 
more than 1.2 million children under the age of 15 living 
in FEMA-declared disaster zones could be stricken. That's 
as many as 100,000 or more kids across the Gulf region. 


 In New Orleans, mental-health workers fear that in a city 
where mental health services were already poor at best before 
the storm, children will be cheated of critical mental health 
care. Before Katrina, Louisiana ranked lowest in the nation 
for state health based on a high number of uninsured citizens, 
meager public health funds, and a high child poverty rate, 
according to the United Health Foundation. 


 -- By Tracy Clark-Flory 


Balance of article can be read at the above URL.