Three years after Hurricane Katrina laid squander to much of New Orleans, 53-year-old Mike Gootee still bears the hurt he experienced when he lost his home, his community and his livelihood.
His home, located in the Vista Park neighborhood of the city, ended up underwater when a levy broke, implosion therapy the area with water nine feet deep.
The home had been where he had fully grown up, and it was where he had resided with his wife and 19-year-old word. He and his syndicate were constrained to relocate to nearby Lake Charles until the storm blew over.
"From a personal full point of view, it was hard," he said. "Loss of everything -- loss of my practice, loss of my community."
Gootee is not only one of the hurricane's millions of displaced victims; he is also a licensed mental health counselor. And he says that the receive introduced him firsthand to the anxiousness and torture that comes with losing it all.
"It's a lot of 'What do you do?' 'Do you go back?'" he said. "A lot of indecision."
Now, state emergency agencies and residents alike are bracing for the possibleness that the killer storm Gustav could follow Katrina's path. Brenda Roberts, a Lake Charles-based mental health counselor wHO survived both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, which hit trey weeks later, said lingering fears ar indeed pickings a price on mental health.
"Whenever we see anything turn towards the Gulf, anxiety levels rise dramatically," she aforementioned. "People suit hyper-vigilant -- everything makes them nervous, and whatever unresolved feelings about past trauma drive stirred up.
"What they're going through correct now is a reawakening of all of those feelings. Some of those who went through the storm and lost their homes ar afraid of losing it again, particularly those world Health Organization lost everything, are soundless displaced and still not able to return home."
And new research suggests that even as Gootee and his fellow New Orleans residents twain for what could be yet some other encounter with a slayer storm, many of the health issues of those most gravely affected by Hurricane Katrina still remain three years on.
The report, published Friday morning in the diary Health Affairs, was based on surveys of 610 people world Health Organization had been displaced by Katrina and were soundless living in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found that of these people, more than than half -- 57 percent -- met the criteria for major depression. Altogether, more than 70 percent reported on or more symptoms of depression.
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