Healing the Youngest Victims of Katrina

(CBS)  Four years after Hurricane Katrina, survivors will tell you that the events the day - and the days after - were both horrifying and haunting.

"They were walking on dead bodies and we actually saw a man who was holding his daughter in his hand," said Dorreal Fluker. "She just died in his hand. It made me feel bad and I started crying. I started to worry about my little sisters and brothers."

"How does a young person process that kind of stuff - seeing things like that?" asked CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts.

"At the time, I didn't want to process it," Dorreal said.

But for these New Orleans high school students, the lingering scar of Hurricane Katrina isn't what happened four years ago, it's what hasn't happened four years later.

"I lived in the Ninth Ward," said Victor Carter, a senior at the New Orleans Charter Science and Math High School. "I have to go to school and I travel seven miles every day and see that the Ninth Ward is still the same."

In fact, just 2,600 of the 14,000 residents who lived in the lower Ninth Ward before Katrina have returned. While much of New Orleans is getting back to normal, the areas hardest hit still struggle - especially the children.

"It makes me mad sometimes," Victor said.

Experts say getting over mental trauma from disasters like Hurricane Katrina normally takes about three years. But as New Orleans closes in on a fourth anniversary, health officials believe it could take adults and children here three times longer to heal from their psychological wounds.

"Our young people here in New Orleans were forced to face a very adult situation," said Dr. Jullette Saussy, the superintendent of the New Orleans Emergency Medical Services. "And it had some consequences."

Four years ago, CBS News first met Saussy outside the city's convention center. She and her team ankle deep in water and chest deep in a healthcare system that was overwhelmed and broken. Today, she says, it's the mental health system that's busted. And children here are paying for it.

"A lot experimented with substance abuse, a lot of self medication, a lot of drinking, a lot of drugs," Saussy said.

According to a 2007 study, it's estimated that there are 45,000 children in the city that have some kind of mental health problem. This year alone, there have been 40 suicides among adults and children - the youngest person was 11 years old.

"Anybody that knows anything about children knows that the best-case scenario is to have children in a supportive environment for any kind of treatment," Saussy said.

CBS News first met an emotional Tyronne Smith, then 13, seven days after he was forced to evacuated to Baton Rouge.

"I lost my house, my dogs," Smith said. "It has just been horrible."

Now a junior in high school, Tyronne credits his parents and counseling for helping him to move on.

"Katrina changed everything in an instant," Tyronne said.

"That is a tough lesson for a kid to learn?" Pitts asked.

"Yep, I've learned it, so now I value everything," Tyronne said.

Earlier this year, the Smiths moved back to their home which was once under five feet of water.

Tyronne said life is great for him now.

"I am back with my family, back with my friends," he said. "I made new friends."

Back home in a city that is slowly putting the pieces back together.

[TheVarsityClub]

For the poor souls that have no idea what really happened during Katrina, and her aftermath, please watch Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts." It's playing on HBO this weekend. May you one day find the happiness you so desperately seek.

[demongirl60]

I agree with dsr57......

[05egret]

Mr. Pitts... thank you for such an informative and touching article. I hope you can do a follow up investigating why, given the facts of your article, the govenor, Mr. Jindal, thinks it is appropriate to close NOAH (New Orleans Adolescent Hospital) which is where teenagers in an incredibly overbudened system can get mental help and medicine. His theory was that they could go across the lake to Covington ?!? After all its only forty minutes away (if you go at midnight?) That's forty minutes each way. These single working mom's have so much free time too. During the day traffic can be bumper to bumper on the causeway. Add another 40 minutes. For some of these families the gas alone is prohibitive. This is a disaster in the making. PLease do an article on where mental health in new orleans is coming from... who are the providers, how overburdened is the system, how can we afford to close NOAH? Please look into it soon. there are articles in the times picayune. The hospital is closing. I survived Katrina. The continued callousness of Gov't officials.. in this case one of our own (the gov) is discouraging. A mentally ill man shot a young woman police officer with her own gun. I live in an apt complex and one day a well spoken young man on the elevator told me how he was a high school teacher, fired when Katrina closed all the schools, home destroyed, homeless now, unable to get a job of any sort and for the first time in his life was approaching dispair. He wasn't sure he was going to make it. He did not ask me for anything, he was there because someone he knew in the building was going to let him take a shower. I believed him. Between the road home taking so long and being so unfair and difficult (my neighbor the certified public accountant with a fax machine did not get his money until three months ago and he had every i dotted and every t crossed and inspite of the flood had every document(submitted and resubmitted at least three times each). and the crooked contractors who stole the money from those who had gotten it and the insurance companies who lowballed or stonewalled until sued, and the chinese drywall which has to be torn out and replaced (and who can pay for that?). But I digress. Please do the article on NOAH. I am afraid our govenor has presidential aspirations and he ran his govenor campaign with big tv spots describing how important and essential he understood medical care for children was because his son was born with a heart defect and needed surgery. Video of Jindal and beautiful wife and darling toddler. and people thought maybe JIndal HAD changed and now had heart where he once had a calculator. New orleans is the last place to close one of our few remaining mental health facilities. I have lived here a long time... what happened is quite different from Hurricane Betsy, hilda, andrew... because the recovery has been so slow and protracted. Insurance companies used to pay on claims. they did not have to be sued. Seldom were whole homes completely destroyed, seldom was everything in the home completely destroyed. A tree fell on our house when the eye of Betsy went over us... but that was one room, part of the roof and a few things in that room. Nothing like katrina.

[hamiltoningrate]

o5 Regret: I hope you get the help you need and deserve.

[dwilson59]

05egret

What a great post we can all say now we must do for ourself because the Govt can not help. I think now people will leave the next time a storm comes.