Search

"Depression and anxiety disorders were pervasive. Many residents had regular nightmares of waking up in water. They talked about recurring “breakdowns” in which they became overcome with emotion and physically collapsed. A 2007 study showed that 20 percent of New Orleans residents were categorized as having a Katrina-related serious mental illness, and 19 percent showed signs of minimal to mild mental illness (Sastry and VanLandingham 2008; Thomas 2008).  "

"The stress-inducing factors that prevailed among New Orleans residents were multiple and layered, including physical, psychological, and social displacements around house and home, work, financial security, and family security. The loss of home and jobs and, in some cases, the cost of rebuilding produced huge financial worries for residents. "

"What I experienced was coming back to the devastation of the city. No grocery stores, no cell phone service, certainly no phone service, no regular phone service. We actually had to get other cell phones. You know, it was a ghost town. I think I, probably, maybe not now, but I was in shock, you know, because I couldn’t take in the enormity of it. I wondered knowing the politics of the city, and the state, and actually the federal government, how it was ever going to be fixed.  "

“Chronic disaster syndrome” thus refers in this analysis to the cluster of trauma-and posttrauma-related phenomena that are at once individual, social, and political and that are associated with disaster as simultaneously causative and experiential of a chronic condition of distress in relation to displacement.  "

"Not surprisingly, residents and those still trying to return to New Orleans are asking the question: Where did all the federal money go? Residents still living out of their trailers wonder why they could not get Road Home or FEMA funds and continue to wait to find out if their rental housing will be rebuilt.  "

I further researched governmental policies on natural disasters as well as the agencies that were frequently discussed in the article such as FEMA. I also researched the general current state of New Orleans today in comparison to pre Hurricane and post Hurricane (within the first few years) conditions and then compared it with today. I also researched any forms of direct emergency response that occurred during the hurricane and after out of interest on the topic. 

The arguments were supported through providing data and statistics on the amount of those suffering still and providing background and input from numerous government agencies on the topic. Interviews with survivors were also used to support the argument and provide first person experience about the conditions in which they live and hardships they face.The interviews recount what occurred and was experienced during the disaster, as well. Ben, a 42 year old carpenter, Muriel and many others are quoted and provide testimony to the adversities they faced- physiologically, psychologically and emotionally during and post Katrina. The  article then discusses the roles government agencies have in recovery after the disaster.

The article's bibliography is very long and thorough, as well as extensive. There are hundreds of citations of other papers and articles on the topic, as well as  assessments and memorandums from numerous governmental agencies such as FEMA, Homeland Security and Federation of America. There are also new outlet citations and policy citations. This all goes to show that the research that went into this article is very heavy and intense, which provides it with much detail and allows for it to be an excellent source of information and recollection of the effects Katrina has had and still has on those affected. 

The main focus of this article was on chronic disaster syndrome, or the psychological and physiological effects generated by the disruptions caused by a disaster, or specifically in this article, Hurricane Katrina. The effects of long term stress related to loss of family, shelter, community and jobs are analyzed. In this article individual suffering based off chronic trauma and long term displacement, disaster capitalism tied to social welfare and the ways the displacement function within the disaster capitalism are discussed in this article.  

This article has been referenced in dozens of other papers on the topic of Katrina recovery and the effects the disaster had on its survivors. One of which is cited below: 

Adams, Vincanne et al. “Aging Disaster: Mortality, Vulnerability, and Long-Term Recovery Among Katrina Survivors.” Medical anthropology 30.3 (2011): 247–270. PMC. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

There are far more articles that have cited this specific work, many of them having to do with Katrina disaster recovery specifically, as well as preventative measures or vulnerabilities that the area had pre hurricane. It is also important to note that the article is also discussed by numerous governmental agencies as well. 

Vincanne Adams is a PhD at UCSF School of Medicine, she's the former Director and Vice-Chair of Medical Anthropology and History and Social Medicine. Her areas of research and publications include: Global Health, Asian Medical Systems, Social Theory, Critical Medical Anthropology, Sexuality and Gender, Safe Motherhood and Disaster Recovery, Tibet, Nepal, China and the US. Van Hattum works at the Louisiana Public Health Institute and Diana English is a professor at Stanford hospital. They all deal with populations that are effected my disaster and are disadvantaged economically and socially. 

http://profiles.ucsf.edu/vincanne.adams

Emergency response is addressed in different ways in this article. In terms of true emergency response during and immediately following the disaster, examples of emergency response can be seen in the recounting of those that were interviewed, but they weren't explicitly discussed in the article. The article does however extensively discuss aid that followed the disaster and discusses that aspect of emergency response, and more so the recovery and resiliency aspects of it. Such as government funding, aid relief, conditions in which things were left, hardships that those who survived came back and had to deal with, how medical care, socioeconomic factors and much more were highly effected post Katrina.

The article utilizes first hand testimony from those living in new Orleans that lived through the disaster and were evacuated, documenting their hardships faced. The article also cited different government agencies as well as different papers and organizations for statistics on post disaster government funding, emergency response and preparedness.