Despite the crowd, the space was eerily silent. That impression hit me arriving at the New Orleans airport late at night a few days after Hurricane Katrina with colleagues from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The airport had been converted into an emergency shelter and even after midnight medical services remained in full swing. We walked among thousands of men, women and children sitting on bare floors and window sills or lying on benches or cots. I tried to make eye contact with stunned and vacant faces.
At the time I had spent more than 10 years in the disaster behavioral health field at state and federal levels, but never had I seen such stark conditions with so many traumatized people. It was nothing short of heartbreaking.
I talked to some of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) personnel onsite – many exhausted and overwhelmed by what they witnessed or experienced – about basic ways to ease stress. A responder recognized me from a training class I taught and hugged me like a close, old friend. The training had been Stress Management for the Healthcare Trauma Provider.
“I haven’t been able to do much of what you taught me,” she said, half-laughing, “but I think about it ALL the time!” I guess in her setting she couldn’t see a way to use the strategies like meditation or progressive muscle relaxation.
Despite the devastation, I witnessed people supporting one another and coming together to help others. I spoke with many survivors and first responders who told stories about someone they had met — a stranger, a provider, a responder — who made a difference, helping in a time of real need, whether by sharing food or providing of a shirt from a bag of clothing hastily collected and given away to someone who left their home with only the clothes on their back. Responders and medical personnel took short breaks from caring for evacuees and checked on one another.
Resilience - the sustained ability of communities to withstand and recover from adversity - requires that people have the knowledge and resources to know what to do to care for themselves and others in emergency situations. Amid so much disruption and dismay, what I now know as “resilience” was evident that night just a few days after the storm.
I spent a lot of time working in storm ravaged areas of the Gulf over the next three years overseeing crisis counseling programs that helped survivors connect with displaced loved ones or to services to help them recover from their traumatic experiences. A community-based outreach and education approach proved most effective in reaching evacuees who resettled in so many different areas. I saw some communities begin to thrive again and rebuild and others struggle to coax residents back and reopen businesses. Grief and losses from Katrina remained apparent in people touched by the storm, even years later.
Recently, I was in New Orleans and wandered along streets that seemed uninhabitable after the storm. One shop owner asked if I was visiting or in town for work. I told him I was presenting on the psychological aspects of disaster and ways responders could help survivors and one another. He confided that he and his wife evacuated during Katrina with nothing and stayed in different shelters and churches the first couple weeks. In one place they found mental health workers alongside the nurses and staff.
"I didn’t realize how much I needed someone to help me emotionally right then until I met them," he told me. "They helped us figure out what to do next and how to get help. They listened to us and made us feel like we were going to be okay. And you know what? We are now.” He added, “I don’t know if you hear this often but what you do is very important; I am thankful for it.”
Today I work in HHS' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response with a lot of talented people in public health, emergency response, and disaster behavioral health, people dedicated to caring for everyone’s physical and emotional needs following disasters. HHS even has a national 24/7 disaster distress helpline now to connect people with trained crisis counselors (800-985-5990 or text talkwithus to 66746).
We’re committed to individual and community resilience, so I often reflect on the days, weeks, and years following Katrina and think of the many survivors, including that New Orleans shop owner, I have been privileged to meet. They taught me what resilience really looks like and how essential it is for everyone to work together to make individual and community resilience possible. It’s a lesson for all of us: your individual resilience will help your community withstand disasters, heal, grow and, ultimately, be okay.
