Category 3 Hurricane Milton hit Florida’s west coast Wednesday night, killing at least 17 people and leaving more than 3 million people without power. Florida, hit last month by a more powerful Hurricane Helen, is currently considering a major recovery effort. But storm recovery is more than just repairing roofs and cutting down fallen trees. Recovery must also include addressing mental health issues associated with hurricanes, or even just living in areas susceptible to such storms.
Recovery must also include addressing mental health issues associated with hurricanes, or even just living in areas susceptible to such storms.
Indeed, the mental health impacts of the climate crisis have become a more salient issue and are attracting the attention of researchers and mental health professionals. As hurricanes become more intense and heat waves become more frequent, it is understandable and reasonable that our collective sense of well-being could take a hit at even a glimpse of what the crisis will cause in its entirety. There are. The umbrella term “climate anxiety” has come to encompass distress and other negative and complex emotions about how climate change is reshaping life as we know it. I did.
In 2021, a groundbreaking survey of 10,000 young people in 10 countries found that nearly 60% of respondents were “very concerned” or “very concerned” about climate change. It became clear. The majority felt that “people are failing to take care of the earth” and “the things I value most will be destroyed.”
In a viral video recorded as Hurricane Milton approached (at the time it was an even more frightening Category 5 storm), veteran meteorologist John Morales of Miami’s NBC 6 shows the storm’s rapid intensification and destruction. While holding back tears, he explained the possibility of “I’m sorry,” he says, shaking, clearly emotional as he talks about the storm. “This is just terrifying.”
“The ocean is incredibly, incredibly hot,” he continued. “As you can imagine, it’s record heat. You know what’s driving it. I don’t need to tell you. Global warming, climate change leads to this.”
I’ve been attending UN climate change conferences for years, and I’ve heard countless people talk about what the climate crisis has stolen from them. Their homes were reduced to rubble. Their lives were uprooted by the disaster. Children’s futures are shrouded in uncertainty.
Suffering, anger, anxiety, guilt, sadness. These are indicators of climate change that we too often overlook as news reports show visible debris and flooded roads. And this will cause Florida’s recovery from Hurricane Milton to take longer than many realize. Although not immediately obvious, we should expect the mental health implications of the storm to be significant.
Milton’s crossing of the Gulf of Mexico sparked one of the largest evacuations ever in Florida and sparked widespread fear of the fury it could unleash. It strengthened to a Category 5 storm faster than any other storm on record in the Gulf of Mexico.
Although Milton has partially weakened and made landfall far enough from Tampa Bay for the state to avoid a “worst-case scenario,” President Joe Biden warned in advance that it was “like the storm of the century.” Addressing Floridians, he said: “I know it’s really hard to leave behind your home, your belongings, everything you own,” he said, adding, “It’s literally a matter of life and death.”
In the midst of life and death crises, we must carve out space to grapple with the insidious painful emotions that follow these catastrophes. Although mental health impacts receive less national attention and fewer resources are marshaled during physical recovery efforts, they are real, important, and will continue long after the floodwaters recede. Masu.
We need to carve out space to grapple with the insidious painful emotions that follow these catastrophes.
Consider the case of Hurricane Katrina. Next year marks the 20th anniversary of one of the deadliest events this country has ever experienced, which killed nearly 1,400 people in Louisiana and Mississippi and caused an estimated $190 billion in damage, adjusted for inflation. . Up to 30,000 people have gathered at the Superdome in Louisiana seeking shelter, but fresh air and sanitation are lost when the power goes out and people are trapped.
The impact on mental health was profound. A longitudinal, peer-reviewed study using a representative sample of adults suggests that nearly 30% of people exposed to a storm experience post-traumatic stress disorder at some point. Masu. The 2022 documentary “Katrina Babies,” directed by Edward Buckles, aka “Katrina Babies,” chronicled the trauma of children forced from their neighborhoods by hurricanes and at high risk for anxiety and depression.
Florida has a long road to recovery, and we should not underestimate the toll on mental health that is only now beginning to show. As the state rebuilds, the climate crisis looms large. It will also loom large in the hearts of those who have just experienced this storm, and in the hearts of all those who fear even greater storms to come.
