Term Paper on "Children Lost Forgotten and Dispersed After Katrina"

Term Paper 17 pages (4667 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Katrina

Children Lost, Forgotten and Dispersed After Katrina

Natural disasters hit without prejudice, devastating the rich and poor, black and white, etc. (Kahlenberg, 2005). When a major disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina, hits, it has an enormous impact on everyone in the path of destruction. And children are no exception.

In the months following Katrina, the agency received reports of 4,710 children missing or displaced in Louisiana, 339 in Mississippi and 39 in Alabama. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in a total of 5,192 children. After Rita, another 28 children were reported missing or displaced in Louisiana; 76 were reported in Texas (Katrowitz and Breslau, 2005).

Of the cases reported to NCMEC, the most serious were those children arriving at shelters separated from parents/guardians with no adult supervision (Katrowitz and Breslau, 2005). There were a total of 45 unaccompanied children "found" and reported to NCMEC. As of October 7, 2005, all 45 cases were resolved. However, many children are still experiencing symptoms of trauma and depression even more than a year after the hurricane struck.

How Disasters are Different for Children

For adults, the aftermath of the hurricane involves dealing with lost homes, jobs and possessions (Callimachi, 2006). For children, it's a sense of security and lost toys. For adults, the hurricane's damage is the twisted houses, ripped from their foundations, and such things as bloated couches, spit out onto the street. For many children, a favorite toy is much more than a physical object. "If you lose a favorite teddy bear, you haven't just lost a toy. You've lost one of the means by which you keep yourself feeling safe," says Dr. Claude Chemtob, a clinical professor of psychology and pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

In addition, for Katrina's children, their destroyed homes are similar to Ground Zero (Callimachi, 2006). They return, sifting through the rubble, looking for tiny pieces of their rooms and favorite toys. They mourn each lost toy and each piece of a school art project. For example, 10-year-old Jasmine Lombard found a cheap pink barrette on the floor of her flooded room. She clings to it like it is a family heirloom. "This is the only memory I have of this entire neighborhood," she says.

Flooded by new cases, child psychologists in New Orleans say case loads have doubled, due to both the impact of the disaster and the loss of doctors in the area. "I used to be able to book a new child within two weeks. Now, I'm booking appointments two months out," says child psychologist Carlos Reinoso, author of the book "Little Ducky Jr. And the Whirlwind Storm," which addresses the hurricane (Callimachi, 2006).

Mental health professionals believe that the greatest impact has yet to be seen (Callimachi, 2006). The 1988 earthquake in Armenia killed 25,000 people. Tracking more than 200 children over five years, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles' Trauma Psychiatry Program found that those who were given professional help early on had better outcomes and showed fewer symptoms at the end of the study that those who did not get help. Without professional help, children victims risk a future of drug and alcohol abuse, high blood pressure, crime and child abuse.

This crisis is foreseeable, and much of its destructive impact is preventable," Perry says (Callimachi, 2006). "Yet our society may not have the wisdom to see that the real crisis of Katrina is the hundreds of thousands of ravaged, displaced and traumatized children."

Long-Lasting Effects

In June 2006, when hurricane season began, Gulf Coast children became extremely anxious (Cass, 2006). According to day-care center workers in Gautier, Miss., the children would ask their caregivers every day: "Did you watch the Weather Channel? What does the Weather Channel say?" In a New Orleans trailer park, a 12-year-old boy who spent five days outside the convention center after Hurricane Katrina begged his mother every day to buy a car so they would have a chance to escape if another disaster struck.

This shows that nearly one year after Katrina, its emotional effect on children is long and lasting (Cass, 2006). Two studies of children affected by the hurricane have found high rates of depression, anxiety, behavioral problems and post-traumatic stress disorder. A Louisiana State University mental health screening of nearly 5,000 children in schools and temporary housing in the state revealed that 96% saw hurricane damage to their homes or neighborhoods; 22% had relatives or friends who were injured; 14% had relatives or friends who died; and 35% lost pets. Thirty-four percent were separated from their parents during the disaster.

A report prepared for Congress last November estimated that 189,000 children were displaced by Katrina; many never returned to their original homes (Cass, 2006). Some children have attended several different schools since Katrina. Many who returned to school in New Orleans were unable to attend the same schools with the same students or teachers as before.

Disasters like Oklahoma City and 9/11 were time-limited," said Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness and president of the Children's Health Fund (Cass, 2006). "The children who were affected psychologically could go to a place of normalcy. The difference here is not only the scope of devastation but the prolonged dislocation with an uncertain timeline. The trauma has not yet ended."

In a study by Columbia University and the Children's Health Fund of 665 displaced families, nearly half of the parents said that at least one child in their household had emotional or behavioral difficulties that did not exist before the hurricane. Symptoms involve sadness, depression, nervousness, fear, and personality problems. Compared with children surveyed in Louisiana in 2003, Katrina's victims were more than twice as likely to have behavioral problems.

The younger children lack the cognitive ability to grasp the idea of a once-in-a-hundred-year storm," said Elmore Rigamer, a psychiatrist (Cass, 2006). "For them, if it happened once, the world is an unsafe place."

Experts believe that efforts to help Katrina children should focus not just on the children but also on their families (Cass, 2006). Numerous charities and nonprofit organizations have established programs that aim to help families, such as free family mental health screening, trauma counseling in schools, and summer programs for children who have fallen behind in school or are living on government aid.

Positive Outcomes

Many of the frightening stories had happy endings. For example, twelve-year-old Emil, 8-year-old Ronell, 8-year-old Ronald and 3-year-old Treneka were separated from their parents when the family left the New Orleans Superdome just after the hurricane (Brown, 2005). The parents prayed that children were with friends but were unable to find them for two weeks. Finally a social worker located the children, who were safe and sound with family friends in Dallas. Those children were reunited with their parents in a relatively short period, but some children remain missing.

According to Bob O'Brien, director of NCMEC Missing Children's Division, the number of missing children was extremely high after the disaster because of the unprecedented circumstances surrounding Katrina (Brown, 2005). The NCMEC typically allows only parents and legal guardians to register children. However, due to the chaos of the relief effort, the organization allowed other relatives, such as aunts, uncles and grandmothers, to register children.

Negative Outcomes

Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was home to more than 130,000 children. The disaster left these children lost, confused, and displaced (Katrowitz and Breslau, 2005). The lucky families lost everything -- houses, cars, possessions -- but stayed together. The less fortunate were left searching for their loved ones, not knowing whether they were dead or alive.

Even the children who were reunited with their parents are not completely safe and sound. Therapists advise that children victims of the storm could suffer for years from the physical and emotional effects of their trauma. "Kids have lost their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, connections with friends," says David Fassler, a psychiatrist at the University of Vermont (Katrowitz and Breslau, 2005). "I would expect to see an increase in anxiety, sleep difficulties, fears."

For young children, behavior changes may include clinginess or regression (Katrowitz and Breslau, 2005). Older children are more likely to experience depression or rebel. Natural disasters are very difficult for children to handle, according to experts. Robin Gurwitch, a member of the American Psychological Association's Disaster Response Network, says: "When you're talking about a man-made disaster, you can get angry at somebody because they bombed the Trade Center or they bombed the Murrah Building. With a natural disaster, who do you get mad at?"

Many children were forced to stay in temporary shelters as their families tried to recover from the disaster (Katrowitz and Breslau, 2005). Technology was somewhat of a relief. At the Reliant Center and the Astrodome in Houston, local companies donated computers and reading glasses so victims could search Web sites that listed the missing and the found. At the Astrodome, volunteers dedicated their time to help families find their missing loved ones. For families… READ MORE

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