Hurricane Katrina Reigning In Children’s Mind

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NEW ORLEANS (GaeaTimes.com)- Five years have passed since Hurricane Katrina reaped through the city of New Orleans bringing it to a standstill and making thousands of people homeless. On the fifth anniversary of one of the greatest natural disaster that has ever hit the largest city of Louisiana, a study published in the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness points out to the impact that Hurricane Katrina has had in the minds of innocent children. It points to the impact that the lack of stable housing is having in the innocent minds that have survived the natural disaster.

Hurricane Katrina back in Aug 29, 2005 had flooded 80 percent of New Orleans and engulfed almost all of adjacent St. Bernard Parish. It took the lives of around 16,000 people and caused property damages worth $80 billion. Struck a month later by Hurricane Rita, around 1.5 million people in Louisiana and Mississippi, which included 163,000 children, were displaced from their place the report claims. These children, whose family still does not have a stable residence, are suffering from immense emotional disturbance according to the study.

The reports claim that children who have been compelled by the disaster to stay at group housings like hotels and trailer parks have developed behavioral problems. Around 20,000 children the study claims suffer from behavioral disorder. It adds that children displaced by Hurricane Katrina are nearly five times more likely to develop emotional disturbance than common children and holds that half of the children among them are in dire need of psychological attention. Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness who has co-authored the study says that a significant number of children are still living under “dangerous and traumatic conditions of persistent displacement”.