For the second episode in this two-part series, click here for The Road to Recovery It's the story of the hurricane that’s as yet untold. When one million people evacuated the Gulf Coast, they left behind the regions most vulnerable residents, poor people, and people with multiple physical and mental disabilities. They are finally escaping... but to what? And of the one million people who fled, experts say we can also expect to see increased long-term rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. Particularly damaged by these budget cuts is the state of Texas, now the new home to hundreds of thousands of refugees suffering from severe trauma reactions as well as a whole range of severe and persistent mental illnesses. How will states cope? Can we expect that mental health disaster relief will receive the same attention and funding as housing, food and other medical needs? Mental health experts have been warning for years of the consequences a disaster of the scope of Katrina on the nations already under-funded and over-stressed mental health system. But much like the warnings about New Orleans fragile levees, these cautions have been disregarded; the mental health infrastructure in much of the country gutted by deep cuts in community mental health programs. We'll hear from leading trauma experts on the scene in Houston about efforts to cope with the demands that the disaster has placed on the mental health care system, including an exclusive report from the Astrodome, where a psychiatrist struggles to provide medication and counseling for thousands of refugees, some of whom arrived so disturbed that they were tearing their hair and skin and actively trying to take their own lives. And we will speak with Thom Bornemann, director of the Carter Center Mental Health Program, who says that the nation is ill-equipped to handle a crisis of this magnitude. Plus why does disaster bring out the best in some people while others are just crushed? Well present some of the most pertinent information from our award-winning program on Resilience, produced in the weeks following the September 11th attacks, including an interview with Dr. Robert Sapolsky (author of "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers") who discusses how people can recover following trauma.
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