Katrina caused massive damages to the city, destroyed infrastructure, flattened neighborhoods, uprooted entire communities and became the catalyst for huge overhauls in the education system and law enforcement of New Orleans. These catastrophic and traumatic events brought national attention for a time and left a lasting impact on everyone involved. While not all parts of the city were grievously harmed, others were irreparable. It took nearly ten years for the population of New Orleans to rebound to even close to the previous population, and at that point, the demographics had shifted dramatically.
In the ten years after Katrina, the city had, overall, become smaller and whiter, and the wealth disparity between black and white residents had grown (Casselman 2016). I believe it is extremely important that the many people that were most harmed were those already so often the least advantaged citizens of New Orleans and because of this they had the most risk factors for lasting economic and developmental damage. I want to talk about some of the factors that likely had a great impact on the development of the younger generations of black children of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. This includes the social/ cultural factors, environmental factors, and individual emotional factors.
Many people in southern Louisiana could not or chose not to evacuate and many of them were stranded in their destroyed homes or surrounding area without food and water, electricity or cell phone connections for several days. Others were held in the Superdome, a sports arena that has been used as emergency before but was in 2005 underprepared for this disaster. The elderly, disabled and impoverished were vastly overrepresented in those who stayed in New Orleans to whether the storm and who were forced to suffer most of the storms gruesome after affects. For children in New Orleans, the effects of Katrina would be profound. Many studies I found indicate that it was the mental health of New Orleans residents was most profoundly affected.
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I did find one article that focused on other kinds of disability and they found that only black resident saw a significant increase in physical disability post Katrina and “In particular, young and middle-aged black women appear to have experienced by far the largest increase in disability following Hurricane Katrina of any of the age-race-sex groups that we examined. Overall disability rose by 11.5 percentage points in the year after the hurricane for young black females, a tripling of disability from the 4.6% rate in the period prior to the hurricane” (Sastry 2012). This study acknowledges that they don’t provide any clear or direct source for these dramatic increases but speculate that it is likely a combination of factors that include the loss of stable housing, the breakup of families, the lack of adequate food for some period and so on. Regardless, the people most effected in this way by the events of Katrina were black women.
So, I imagine that some of these women were mothers, or pregnant or had some role in the caretaking of children in their families. If the children raised in this environment are genetically predisposed to any kind of mental illness, the stress of this kind of trauma on a parent could be a key risk factor. In hand with this are all the environmental factors, the polluted water and insufficient plumbing in the days after, the mold and bacteria that flourished after the flood waters. For children, the environment itself could have lasting effects on health or act as a trigger for mental illness like PTSD.
Above all, when looking at these statistics, it seems the most significant resilience factor in New Orleans in 2005 when Katrina hit was to be white and economically stable. In an article I read about the effects of Katrina on the black middle class, Casselman talks about a reluctance to evacuate the 9th ward, where the population was nearly entirely black and about half of the homes were owned.
Despite the warnings, many people did not leave, a decision borne of a proud tradition of not evacuating. It was a choice that many people made consciously but it was also a choice that speaks to the privilege of the predominately white middle class who easily evacuated in the days leading up to the storm. For those who had money and connections out of state or family that they could lean on for money, leaving was not a big deal but for those that lived in the 9th ward, to leave would have been a drastic and dangerous choice that contained risks its own.
The emotional and cognitive toll of an event like Katrina is heartbreaking. Many survivors experienced some PTSD. Like physical disability, this kind of tragedy can highlight gene- environment interactions in play. I would imagine that many behavioral issues could be triggered by traumatic events. Though PTSD can be treated, some infrastructure, or at least access to healthcare is key. In one study I found, the author finds that “Blacks had approximately two-fold greater odds of screening positive for PTSD. In addition, blacks reported worse mental health in the month prior to Katrina, more hurricane-related stressful events, and less social support after Katrina.
Although most of these factors increased the risk for screening positive for PTSD, only pre-Katrina vulnerabilities, reporting frequent mental distress during the month before Hurricane Katrina substantially reduced the strength of the association of race with PTSD, lending support that differential vulnerability between blacks and whites may be an important factor to consider when exploring racial disparities in PTSD (Alexander 2017). The study compared all the many factors that could explain the vast disparity and finds that for some reason (and I would imagine for several reasons deeply imbedded in this country’s structure) being Black is in fact a risk factor for PTSD in the wake of Katrina.
The social factors are particularly relevant to the developing child. After Katrina the entire education system of New Orleans was dismantled, and a new system of charter schools were constructed. For the children whose education was completely uprooted, Katrina could have had a profound affect on their sense of stability and outlook for their future. These charters replaced every single (many black, middle class) teacher in the city. I imagine this could be traumatic to a community’s sense of identity and pride. On the other hand, these new charter schools were and are praised by some as a mini-miracle that changed the course of a failing education system for the better. I think that there is a lot to say about that and how perhaps the importing of teaching “talent” can harm the existing culture, however it is undeniably a major factor in the developing child post-Katrina.
Black children growing up in New Orleans in 2005 were at risk for many developmental challenges and I believe that it can only be helpful to acknowledge race and the often-linked wealth disparity as risk factors for trauma and developmental issues. Hurricane Katrina affected the culture, spurred education reform, had profound effect on the mental and physical health of New Orleans residents and put many at risk for PTSD and other mental illness. Despite that, the overhaul of infrastructure should at least in theory, help mitigate some of these risks.
Citations
- Alexander AC, Ali J, McDevitt-Murphy ME, et al. Racial Differences in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Vulnerability Following Hurricane Katrina Among a Sample of Adult Ever Smokers from New Orleans. Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities. 2017;4(1):94-103. doi:10.1007/s40615-015-0206-8.
- Casselman, B. (2016, September 12). Katrina Washed Away New Orleans’s Black Middle Class. Retrieved September, 2018, from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katrina-washed-away-new-orleanss-black-middle-class/
- Sastry N, Gregory J. The effect of Hurricane Katrina on the prevalence of health impairments and disability among adults in New Orleans: Differences by age, race, and sex. Social science & medicine (1982). 2013; 80:121-129. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.12.009.
