Nearing the One Year Anniversary

The one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is less than two weeks away and yet the disaster continues to unfold.

August 10, 2006

Groups want more testing on trailers
By Shelia Byrd
The Associated Press

International charity Oxfam America and the Mississippi NAACP on Wednesday called for an independent contractor to conduct air quality tests of FEMA trailers to determine whether there are elevated formaldehyde emissions.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, acting on 46 complaints from Mississippi residents living in FEMA trailers, has said it will order air quality tests for the housing. The testing is to be conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency.

But state NAACP President Derrick Johnson said the public is losing confidence in FEMA because the agency has not aggressively sought to address formaldehyde concerns that have been circulating since spring.

"The government has a duty to provide a safe environment for the victims of the hurricane and the children to live in, and apparently that has not been done," said Johnson.

Churches battling post-Katrina Depression

By Russell McCulley | August 13, 2006

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - African-American ministers, accustomed to providing spiritual guidance to their congregations, are helping members cope with serious mental and emotional disorders nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina hit.

"There's a sense of hopelessness as it relates to, 'When are we going to get this city back to where it was?"'...

African-American churches, like the communities they served, were hit hard, and many are still struggling to regroup.

"They are being called upon to do all kinds of phenomenal things, in terms of dealing with the loss and the pain," said Jennifer Jones-Bridgett, director of PICO LIFT, a statewide interfaith coalition of churches.

Ministers, Jones-Bridgett said, report being overwhelmed by the anxiety, depression and frustration with the slow pace of recovery expressed by many residents of the storm-ravaged city.

"They are dealing with these concerns in their own personal lives, as well as in the lives of members of the congregation who are coming home," she said....

"These were the vulnerable people to start with," said University of California at Los Angeles psychologist Vickie Mays. "And the city services that weren't working well before, now really aren't working at all."

Studies conducted in Katrina's wake have found significant increases in substance abuse, depression and suicide.

But only 22 of the 196 psychiatrists who practiced in New Orleans have returned, according to a report published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A state-run psychiatric hospital re-opened last week with 10 adult beds, a fraction of what was available before the storm.

As the city waits for its share of $80 million in federal relief funds allocated for rebuilding the state's mental health care infrastructure, local pastors are being called upon to fill the void.