Hi everyone! We are well into the Hurricane Season for 2021 and today Trinidad and Tobago was put on a Yellow Alert due to the passage of a weather system.
For those interested in learning more about the possibilities of the hurricane season, try to register for the Pre-Hurricane Conference 2021 put on by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). It runs from Wednesday 23rd to Friday 25th June 2021.
While there is great value in developing a Disaster Plan and Kit or Go-Bag, one of the key ways to prepare for the hurricane season is to know how to deal with past, present and future trauma.
In a recent article on Inside Climate News, James Bruggers interviewed Disaster Expert, Reggie Ferreira, an associate professor of social work at Tulane University. Ferreira is the editor of the American Psychological Association’s Traumatology Journal, a peer-reviewed research publication. His areas of academic interest include the mental health effects of climate change and disaster resilience.
In a wide-ranging Question and Answer session, Ferreira emphasised the unique nature of the 2020 hurricane season: "It’s basically mass trauma events, what we’re experiencing, especially like the past hurricane season that we had in the Gulf. It was this compounding, just hurricane after hurricane and tropical depression after the tropical depression. And then on top of that we had Covid."
Against this backdrop is the fact that the systems to address mental health are lacking. He went on to say, "One thing that we’re faced with is that our mental health care system is broken and there’s not enough services before a disaster. So then, during a time of disaster, our system is overloaded. There’s not enough people available to provide services, and that’s been a real case for a lot of relief agencies."
Asked what he had learned from his extensive study of the mental health effects of Hurricane Katrina, Ferreira stated: "We need to focus on addressing root causes, what’s creating vulnerability, looking at pre-existing conditions of vulnerable populations, and addressing the root causes like poverty, structural racism, inequities. A disaster just exposes these issues more."
In view of the broken system and the unwillingness or inability of some persons to obtain clinical support, Ferreira suggested these options: "Talk about it. There are a lot of people going through what you are experiencing. And then there are measures for building out your social support system, getting emotional support from trusted friends and family members. And then something just as basic as self-care. That can be something as simple as doing regular exercise, meditation, reading, just getting that distraction, but also keeping the body, mind and health in check. Because what we’re experiencing is not normal. Covid is not normal, this changing climate is not normal."
Read the full article on Inside Climate News [Q&A: With Climate Change-Fueled Hurricanes and Wildfire on the Horizon, a Trauma Expert Offers Ways to Protect Your Mental Health]
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