RAYNELL STEWARD TV

Tyffani Delacruz is a New Orleans native who fled the city during Katrina. The not knowing was extremely anxiety-provoking,вЂќ she says. We struggled with not knowing the fates of the people we cared about who stayed. вЂњWe were away struggling to understand what in the world was happening to our city. She was one of a group of residents who was able to leave and says, though they didnвЂ™t experience the trauma of the storm, many residents who left suffered with stress and depression in the stormвЂ™s wake. Head-Dunham, whose office oversees mental-health services in the state, lives in New Orleans. Those challenges aside, the impact on mental health was also moderated by where people were during the storm and what their losses were,вЂќ she says. вЂњThat was the number one group that was most vulnerable during that period. вЂњPeople who were already predisposed to mental illness were most impacted by the storm,вЂќ says Rochelle Head-Dunham, assistant secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health & Hospitals and medical director for the Office of Behavioral Health. вЂњYou never think at 13 that everything can be taken away from you, but thatвЂ™s what happened.вЂќ Despite incidences of both conditions declining from highs in the first months post-Katrina, they still werenвЂ™t back to pre-hurricane levels seven years later. A 2012 Princeton study of low-income mothers in the New Orleans area found that even after four years, about 33 percent of its participants had Katrina-related PTSD, and 30 percent reported psychological distress. In fact, one study found that rates of mental illness in New Orleans doubled after the storm. Depression, anxiety, addiction and, for those who experienced life-and-death scenarios, post-traumatic stress disorder were common. Indeed, much of New Orleans has recovered from the physical and psychological devastation of Hurricane Katrina, but for years after the storm survivors struggled with staggering mental-health challenges. You donвЂ™t really hear people saying theyвЂ™re still messed up from Katrina.вЂќ You donвЂ™t hear that in the media, but we are. вЂњNew Orleans is tired of talking about Katrina,вЂќ she said. She says she still gets afraid during hurricane season but has been able to manage those feelings on her own. Stewart says the feelings of stress from Katrina, not knowing what would happen to her family and their home, stayed with her for years. The Stewarts made it out of Algiers with the help of a neighbor whose car had not been submerged. They survived in their home for three days and were eventually able to leave when the waters receded. Before long, the Stewarts were surrounded by floodwater that rushed into the city when its levees failed. Along with the downed trees, they noticed something else: rising waters. Stewart says she and her sister even went out after it passed to take pictures in the neighborhood. They lost power but, as expected, their neighborhood held up during the storm. Given the cost of picking up for just a few days and lingering doubts about the actual impact of the looming storm, Raynell Stewart, her older sister, and their mother, decided to bunker down in their home.

RAYNELL STEWARD TV

The next morning, on all the TV channels there were alerts that a hurricane was coming and that everyone had to evacuate.вЂќ вЂњI remember because me and my friends went to a back-to-school dance that Saturday. She says she first learned about the coming storm just a day before it made landfall and expected it would be no different from hurricanes past. It usually came and went with a lot of fanfare but minimal damage. Born and raised in New Orleans, Stewart says that her family never really paid much mind to hurricane season. Raynell Stewart was just 17 years old when Katrina hit her neighborhood, the Algiers section of the city. The number of chronically mentally ill incarcerated in Orleans Parish Prison increased during this time and has remained high, although capacity to provide services to this population is limited. After the storm, many hospitals closed their psychiatric wards which created a lack of psychiatric beds and resources to serve the mentally ill. Prior to Katrina there were between 196 and 208 psychiatrists practicing in the New Orleans area for 480,000 residents. Studies estimated that between 22 and 42 psychiatrists returned to New Orleans in the fall and winter of 2005.

Raynell steward