Natural Disaster Experience

The stressor I chose is Natural Disaster. The natural disaster that affected many family and friends is Katrina. 

Katrina Hit Mississippi and tore the state apart. There were so many casualties and those that did survive were affected emotionally, spiritually, mentally and financially. To this day Katrina has affects on so many people. Living here in Mississippi I have heard many stories of survival and death and hearing these stories even from my own family makes it so hard to believe how anyone survived that storm and even the aftermath. 

My nieces were 5 years old when Katrina hit Biloxi Ms. My sister and her family chose to evacuate before the storm hit so they were in a safe place. What they were not prepared for was coming back home or to what use to be their home. There wasn't much of a home left for them. Their car was under water and their house was almost under water too. When my nieces saw their home the cried because they were scared, didn't understand what was going on and all of their toys beds pictures ect. were gone, destroyed. It was an emotional roller coaster for the whole family. Within a matter of a couple of weeks they had to prepare to take the little that was left to salvage and get ready to move to another state because they were told by the military they could no longer live here. My nieces took a little while to adjust. They went through a mix of emotions still trying to understand what happened. They cried a lot and they began to act out. My sister and her husband had to talk to my nieces everyday helping them understand what happened and why they moved and to remind them that they were safe and were going to be okay. 

     Another story is from  a good friend who I consider an Aunt. Her sister lived in New Orleans and their house was getting flooded. They had no choice but to get up on the roof outside the house. It was the mother and her 4 young children. One child fell into the water everyone else panicked and got scared seeing the water rise. They all jumped in except for one daughter who was 11 years old. No one survived. The mother and children drowned and the 11 yr old was the only one who made it. The death or her family and the traumatic experience affected the young girl so much that even today she struggles. She could not cope with the pain and chose drugs to help her pain. She is still struggling today with drugs and does not allow anyone close to her. 

     The country I choose is Mexico. I chose this country because where I grew up in Texas the border was only about 20 min away. Today it is being overtaken by drug cartels. I'm sure everyone has heard on the news about families and children alone fleeing into the United States trying to get away from the violence there. My brother who works in customs has seen children as young as 5 coming across the border alone. Their parents and sending them with strangers hoping they make it across to the United States for a better, safer life. The type of stress these children in Mexico face is fear, anxiety, hunger. Drug Cartels are taken over and killing people for no reason. The children and families were being allowed to come into the United States for safe haven at one time. I would like to do some extensive research to find out what else is being done and what happen to those families and children who were allowed into the US. 

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