Harvey’s health toll climbing
Upswing seen in mental problems, other ailments
Three months after Hurricane Harvey, local health officials now are beginning to see the storm after the storm.
In Harris County and the other hardest-hit regions of Texas, 17 percent of those who had houses damaged or suffered income loss report that someone in their household has a new or worsening health condition. A sweeping new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Houston-based Episcopal Health Foundation shows a similar proportion feels their own mental health has worsened.
“We’re not anywhere near the end yet,” cautioned Dr. Cindy Rispin, a
family physician with the Memorial Hermann Medical Group in League City.
Researchers surveyed more than 1,600 Texans in 24 affected counties to gauge their personal recovery. The report released Tuesday found a region still reeling in ways obvious and hidden.
The record-shattering flood and wind wrecked hundreds of thousands of homes, forcing once stable lives into limbo. Bank accounts have been drained in the wait for relief and insurance checks slow to arrive. Jobs have been lost or hours cut, and families have been upended by transfers to unfamiliar schools and temporary quarters.
Thousands of Houstonians flooded out of their homes are still living with friends, staying in hotels or renting short-term apartments. Some waiting for repairs are finding the rebuilding process taking longer than expected. Contractors are stretched thin and some homeowners have yet to receive flood insurance payments.
City of Houston officials estimate more than 311,000 housing units, including apartments, were damaged during the storm.
More than 4 in 10 residents surveyed for the “Early Assessment of Hurricane Harvey’s Impact on Vulnerable Texans in the Gulf Coast Region” report said their home had hurricane damage. Three 3 percent reported their homes were completely destroyed.
Among those whose homes were damaged, nearly half said they had homeowners’ or renters’ insurance but only 23 percent had flood insurance.
“We’re going to see foreclosures hit. It will probably be people that financially were in a tight spot already,” real estate agent Matthew Guzman said in a recent interview.
‘You lose vital ground’
Perhaps most ominous is the quiet toll Harvey is still taking, months later, on people’s physical and mental health.
Worse, many storm victims were already uninsured in a state that leads the nation in those without coverage. Even those with coverage complained they cannot afford health care, especially as longtime doctors are no longer nearby when people become displaced. About six in 10 say they have skipped or postponed needed treatment, cut back on medication or struggled to get mental health care.
The study’s findings were borne out by local doctors who said Monday that they are continuing to see unexplained respiratory ailments that don’t get better. At the same time chronic conditions such as diabetes are worsening as they often are going unmanaged.
“I’ve seen numerous patients who were supposed to come in months ago and when they do come in, the disease has gotten worse,” said Dr. Richard Harris, an internal medicine specialist at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic in Katy. “You lose vital ground.”
The storm’s toll is showing up in other ways as well: Tempers are shorter as nerves fray. Some fear an uptick in substance abuse as a remedy to the prolonged uncertainty.
For Ollie Raskovsky, a 26-yearold Montrose resident who already struggled with anxiety before the storm, Harvey shoved her condition into overdrive.
‘It was all so overwhelming’
On Sunday, Aug. 27, the water from unending rain had gathered on her bedroom floor. By the next day it was coming in the back door. She was able to throw some small things into boxes and flee to another apartment, but to this day she has not fully unpacked. A battle raged in her head between the checklist of all she must do and the slow-motion paralysis that made it hard to get out of bed.
“It was all so overwhelming. It was not knowing what to do, where to start,” she said. “But then not doing anything made it feel worse.”
She admits she began drinking more than she should. Her predisposition for anxiety turned into a depression. Her friends grew alarmed.
She feels she is now starting to make progress. She bought a couch recently from Ikea and put some books in a bookcase. She is also going to therapy. She worries for the others like her in her city, for those who may not even know what is happening to them.
“When you go through something big like Harvey, there is an immediate reaction, the stress you feel. That is what you pay attention to,” she said. “But there is also a slow creeping reaction. That is the one that really takes the toll.”
Glenn Urbach, executive director of National Alliance on Mental Illness Greater Houston, worries that the area’s already strained mental-health system will shudder under the new demands which may not even been known yet.
“There is no question that Harvey is having an impact on the mental health of the city,” he said.
Harris, of Kelsey-Seybold, agreed.
“It was an unprecedented natural disaster,” he said, “We don’t have the data, the background to guide us. There is no blueprint as to what to expect.”
Except perhaps there is. Consider what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
A year after the storm, researchers found that nearly half of the children in a study of 392 families affected by Katrina were showing signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Other studies found that more than a decade later, depression and anxiety — often coupled with the self medication of alcohol and drug use — have still not fully loosened its grip on Katrina survivors.
Mental health issues can take years to become fully apparent. Stress can marinate silently, turning into anxiety disorders and depression.
“It might be showing up now,” Urbach warned, “but people don’t know what it is.”