Introduction
The United States of America is arguably the most powerful nations on earth. Further, it has one of the most stable democracies in the world. This creates immunity from the two main man made calamities that afflict the earth. The first is being overrun by a foreign aggressor. One of the recent historical evidences of how damaging this can be is the Iraq invasion of Kuwait that almost ruined the prosperous nation. The second is the threat of a sudden regime change. The erstwhile stable nation of Cambodia lost over 30% of its population in a remarkably short duration through a sudden regime change.
This leaves two major threats. The first is terrorism, which America seems to have mastered in recent times. The second is natural disasters, which have become an anathema to the most powerful nation on earth (Cutter, 2009). The American government has invested billions of dollars in disaster preparedness. The America Psychology Association (APA) has thousands of practitioners waiting to offer professional help (APA, 2016). Finally, the American spirit ensures a one for all and all for one attitude whenever these disasters strike (Cutter, 2009). This term paper, reports on the extent of physical, psychological, and sociological damage alongside government preparedness focusing on the most recent natural disaster, hurricane Hermine.
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Overview of the Disaster
America has been prone to many a hurricane emanating from the Atlantic Ocean and developing in the Gulf of Mexico. The most devastating and notorious in recent times was the hurricane Katrina that hardest hit New Orleans Louisiana (Cutter, 2009). After Katrina, there was the destructive hurricane Wilma in 2005 and hurricane Ingrid in 2013. With every such disaster, the level of preparedness in the USA is heightened. Among the major government preparations is the establishment of the billion dollar federal funded United States' National Weather Service (NWS) (FEMA I, 2016). The NWS has a local installation within the Florida International University in University Park, Florida dubbed the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) (FEMA I, 2016).
On 18th August, 2016, NHC’s instruments perceived a tropical wave of concern almost 500km off Cape Verde. This weather development was carefully studied as it entered the Caribbean Sea on the 4 days later (FEMA II, 2016). By then the tropical wave had developed winds classifiable as gales. The NHC could foretell impending calamity albeit without the ability to foretell its path. 5 days later on the 29th of August, the storm had developed into a Category 1 hurricane. On 2nd September, it finally landed with full intensity in Florida. Fortunately, it weakened exponentially into a post-tropical cyclone that moved up the East Coast of the USA with substantial but relatively reduced damage (FEMA II, 2016).
Physical damage
The visible impact of any natural disaster is the most noticeable but many a time the least destructive outcomes. In many cases, the physical damage is brief and quantifiable from a pecuniary perspective especially for non-fatal consequences. Even in fatal natural disasters, it is possible to tell exactly or approximately how many people have been adversely impacted by the natural disasters. It is however, the post physical, psychological, and sociological damage of the disaster that creates the most destructive phase. As earlier indicated, the state of Florida was the most physically affected with an estimated pecuniary damage of US$102 million.
Among the most noticeable elements of destruction was damage to trees, which resulted to damage on power lines. Approximately 80% of the city of Tallahassee and about 60% of its suburbs and neighborhoods suffered power outages with kindred adverse effects. One of the trees also fell on a homeless man in Marion County still in Florida (FEMA II, 2016). The falling trees also destroyed several homes and injured almost 200 Floridians. Finally, there was significant flooding in some parts of Florida which destroyed over 2000 structures, over 500 of them severely. In Tampa Bay area, an environmental crisis ensued when the power outage occasioned the release of over 938 gallons of half-treated sewerage in to the Hillsborough Bay (FEMA II, 2016). There was also heavy damage to roads estimated at tens of millions of dollars. Over 30 people were evacuated while trapped in their vehicles by raging flash floods.
Other parts of the nation such as the Carolinas, Georgia, New York, and Virginia were affected albeit not as severely as Florida. There were power outages that affected approximately a quarter million citizens. Several injuries were also reported in different parts of the abovementioned states (FEMA II, 2016). There was however, one fatality at Cottageville, South Carolina when a citizen volunteer who was trying to remove debris from the road was hit by a speeding vehicle. Two fishermen also drowned in New York’s Long Island as a direct consequence of the hurricane Hermine. In Georgia’s Ray City, a pecan farm was ravaged by high speed winds resulting in the destruction of over 1000 stems and 1 million pounds of nuts. The firm indicated an estimated loss at US$4 million (FEMA III, 2016).
Psychological Damage
The APA is the leading authority on psychological matters in the USA. As indicated herein above, due to the organizations intricate understanding of disasters, it has thousands of professionals standing by to assist those affected by natural disasters (APA, 2016). The main cause of psychological damage from hurricane Hermine is the fear of the unknown. The world has had many incidences of natural disasters so severe that no efforts to curb them were even remotely successful in saving lives. A local example is hurricane Katrina that was so vicious it was impossible for first responders to access the afflicted let alone assist them.
From a global scope, the memories of the 2010 Haiti disaster that claimed 160,000 lives and the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that killed over half a million people including sweeping away entire villages are still fresh. These disasters happened suddenly and on seemingly normal days. Their aftermaths are well known to the American populace as they were streamed globally on social and mainstream media.
An individual who encountered hurricane Hermine may have the same psychological impact as a soldier on active duty in a hostile battle ground. Unfortunately, these are ordinary citizens with no formal training. The threat of actual arm, wounding or even dying terrified the victims. Parents saw their children at risk and felt an inadequacy to assist them. Men saw the women in their lives threatened by circumstances that they were unable to combat. All these left effects akin to the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
According to the American Psychological Association vide APA (2016), the aforesaid and kindred circumstances leads to one or more of the following possible psychological adverse effects. The first is unpredictable and intense emotions, which may include being overwhelmed by grieve, extreme anxiety and nervousness, irritability, and moodiness (APA, 2016). The second effect is a metamorphosis of behavioral and thought patterns. In a lay man terms, this can be defined as reacting to non-existent threats where an individual who is calm and in a safe environment may suddenly develop normal adrenalin reactions such as sweating or higher heartbeats. This may also be coupled with insomnia and loss of appetite (APA, 2016).
The third effect is oversensitivity to normal environmental factors (APA, 2016). In this scenario, normal circumstances and activities trigger abnormal reactions on individuals. A sudden noise perhaps from a falling dish in the kitchen may cause extreme panic to the individual. Triggers may also include colors, ordinary sounds and even smells. These triggers create a Déjà vu effect upon the individual that the crisis created by the hurricane were about to take place all over again (APA, 2016). The fourth effect is strained personal relationships. From a psychological perspective, one of the ways of terming an individual is from the totality of their interactions.
A human being may have a job, a family, and a social circle. This can easily define the individual. Effects of a disaster such as hurricane Hermine will create potentially ruinous friction in these relationships. An individual who was marked as an unaffected survivor of the hurricane may be absolutely ruined and no one knows about it yet (APA, 2016). This is because this individual, due to the physiological effects of the hurricane will become withdrawn, isolated and/or disengaged. In short order, the individual may lose everything including the job, spouse and family.
More often than not, this trend will lead to further damage such as drug abuse, clinical depression or suicide. Finally, the individual may develop stress related physical symptoms as the stress begins to exacerbate into a clinical depression. These include migraines, nausea and chest pains (APA, 2016). Pre-existing conditions and ailments may also be exacerbated by the stress emanating from the stressful situations (APA, 2016).
Social Impact of Hurricane Hermine
Perchance the most difficult to assess and predict yet of utmost importance of the effects of Hurricane Hermine is the social impact. Lindell and Prater (2003) delve into issues relating to social impacts of natural disaster with a bias to hurricanes. According to the journal, it is difficult to tell the exact social impacts of a hurricane until much after the fact (Lindell & Prater, 2003). However, sociology relies mainly on trends to predict future events. By perusing the common social impacts of hurricanes as reported by Lindell and Prater (2003), it is easy to foretell the future social impacts of Hermine with a level of accuracy.
There are several categories of social impacts. The first is the psychosocial impacts and refer to the social impacts emanating from the psychological effects of the hurricane (Lindell & Prater, 2003). The second social impact of a hurricane is the sociodemographic impact. This is the impact occasioned by changes in the composition of the population as a result of the hurricane (Lindell & Prater, 2003). It will only occur in incidents of high fatalities in the hurricane or high migration after the hurricane. This will clearly be the least factor to socially impact the areas affected by hurricane Hermine, but in the aftermath of several other hurricanes along the Eastern Seaboard in recent history, migration might create a significant sociodemographic impact.
Next is the socioeconomic impact (Lindell & Prater, 2003). This will clearly be a major effect in the aftermath of the aforesaid hurricane. As indicated, actual physical damage is estimated at over 170 million dollars. Most of the losses were suffered by individual citizens who might also not get any respite from insurance, if they had any due to stringent industrial laws and rules. In a singular incident indicated above, a farm lost produce and trees worth four million dollars and it might not even be possible for such a farm to ever recover from these losses.
If the factory closes down, many families will be directly impacted socioeconomically through job losses. Further, residents who lost precious properties may develop lethargy to work or invest due to the attitude that the same is futile. The upshot of the foregoing is that the socioeconomic impact of the hurricane will be monumental. Finally, there are the socialpolitical factors that entail a combination of politics and social aspects (Lindell & Prater, 2003). A high impact event such as a hurricane will create a lot of social discourse. In a democratic society, politics are mainly determined by social discourse. Many leaders will be created and many will fall due to the state and federal government’s reaction to the hurricane. Further, policies will also change as a consequence thereof.
Preparedness and Response to Hurricane Hermine
It is my considered opinion that America has come a long way since the hurricane Katrina disaster. In that catastrophe, people who could have been saved died after days in agony due to poor disaster management. It has to be admitted that strides have been made in anticipating, pre-empting and mitigating effects of hurricanes. This came out clearly regarding hurricane Hermine where NHC detected it even before it became a hurricane and was able to effectively follow its path and growth.
The articles by FEMA from September 1st to 3rd 2016 give great examples of the efforts made by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA has sought to ensure that each and every potential hurricane is anticipated and its paths followed closely. It also warns people along the path of the hurricane about the impending danger as well as the ways and means for mitigating the same. Further, the APA as aforesaid has always anticipated psychological and psychosocial impacts by deputizing thousands of psychological practitioners to assist those negatively impacted by hurricanes. This shows a general improvement and progress after hurricane Katrina only a decade ago. Further, individual Americans played a major role through social media in alerting first responders, encouraging, and assisting one another.
However, there seems to be a clear lack of policy and preparedness regarding the sensitive arena of social impacts. Social impacts are perchance the most important of all the impacts of hurricane Hermine. Even after the hurricane itself is forgotten, the social impacts will still be alive in the societies that were so affected. This calls for a clear refocussing of research and planning to factor in this area. There also seems to be a deficiency of proper compensation and restitution for those who are affected by hurricanes and related disasters.
Another good suggestion on the way forward for better disaster management was been propagated vide Sorg (2016). This regards the issue of flooding. In the article, it is noted that flash floods were a major cause of damages in hurricane Hermine. This was however, the very same cause of great damage during hurricane Katrina 10 years ago. According to the article, FEMA wants the government to create a policy for encouraging houses and buildings being erected on higher ground (Sorg, 2016). This incentive is to be through federal construction loans. Those who elect to erect their buildings on higher ground will be granted loans while those erecting their building on flood prone areas will be denied federal loans (Sorg, 2016). This and other anticipative procedures should be adopted by the federal and state governments.
Conclusion
Technology continues to grow and man has been able to perform many feats that seemed impossible just a few years ago. It, therefore, cannot be ruled out that man will one day be able to positively impact climate, just as he is accused of ruining it. Until then, it is advisable for the government to create the best ways and means of anticipating natural disasters, mitigating damage and helping those afflicted. Hurricane Hermine, albeit quite disastrous showcased progress in disaster management by the government in general and FEMA in particular. However, the main focus seems premised on immediate and visible impacts of the hurricane. The foregoing clearly shows that psychological and social impacts are more enduring and damaging than the visible and quantifiable physical damage. There is the need for a higher emphasis on this long term impacts to mitigate damage from Hermine as well as future hurricanes.
References
APA. (2016). Recovering emotionally from disaster . Retrieved from <http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/recovering-disasters.aspx/>
Cutter, S. (2009). Review of natural disaster analysis after hurricane Katrina: Risk assessment, economic impacts and social implications. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management , 6 (1) doi:10.2202/1547-7355.1591
FEMA II. (2016, September 2). FEMA continues to closely monitor Hermine and Lester . Retrieved from <https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2016/09/02/fema-continues-closely-monitor-hermine-and-lester/>
FEMA III. (2016, September 3). FEMA monitors tropical systems along the east coast and Hawaii . Retrieved from <https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2016/09/03/fema-monitors-tropical-systems-along-east-coast-and-hawaii/>
FEMA. (2016, September 1). FEMA closely monitoring hurricane Hermine . Retrieved from <https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2016/09/01/fema-closely-monitoring-hurricane-hermine/>
Lindell, M. K., & Prater, C. S. (2003). Assessing community impacts of natural disasters. Natural Hazards Review , 4 (4), 176–185. doi:10.1061/(asce)1527-6988(2003)4:4(176)
Sorg, L. (2016). Tropical storm Hermine reminds us why FEMA wants federally funded construction on higher ground . Retrieved from <http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2016/09/02/tropical-storm-hermine-reminds-us-why-fema-wants-federally-funded-construction-on-higher-ground/>
