Trauma experts report seeing people with mental disorders in the wake of Hurricane Michael

PANAMA CITY, Florida – Amy Cross is struggling to explain the stress of living in a city torn apart by Hurricane Michael. She is afraid after hearing gunshots at night and she is confused because she no longer recognizes the place where she spent her 45 years.

"I just do not feel that I really feel at home and feel at home," Cross said.

Health workers say they see signs of mental problems among residents after Michael, and that these problems could persist because a short-term disaster turns into a long-term recovery that will take years.

Tony Averbuch, who runs a disaster medical assistance team that sees 80 to 100 patients a day in tents installed in a seriously damaged Bay Medical Sacred Heart hospital car park, said some people showed signs of wear.

It is not difficult to imagine: to get to the treatment site, you have to cross streets with roadblocks and distribution lines, and the building itself of the hospital was torn by the strong winds of Michael.

The signs of trauma are not a surprise to those who studied the population after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The damage to Mexico Beach was similar to that of southern Mississippi, where whole communities were razed by the wind and the storm, and the reconstruction of the city of Panama could take years. , as well as parts of New Orleans after the flood of the metropolitan area.

Irwin Redlener of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University observed widespread and persistent psychological effects after Katrina. One study found that five years after the storm, more than 37 percent of children had been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or behavioral problems.

Redlener explained that this is partly explained by the fact that parents are overwhelmed and are less able to protect their children from bad experiences.

"They survived a major disaster, which is good. But everything they knew was gone, "he said.

Researcher David Murphey said that children are turning to their parents to learn how to respond to completely new and frightening situations.

"If they see parents breaking up a bit, it will also create anxiety for the kids," he said.

Panama City Mayor Greg Brudnicki said a football match in a Saturday high school was part of an effort to "create normality".

"People have been stressed. They had no means of communication, no utility. It's hard. But we have worked very hard to create an environment that makes it as powerful as possible, "he said.