The Lessons of Katrina: Coping With the Next Crisis

Chasing Life

CNN

Nutrition, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.4 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

1,800 lives lost and hundreds of thousands displaced. But the storm left behind more than physical damage. It exposed the lasting psychological toll disasters can take. Nearly 20 years later, catastrophic weather events have only become more common. Dr. Stefan Schulenberg, a leading expert on disaster mental health, explains how trauma lingers, what resilience really looks like, and what Katrina can teach us about facing the crises ahead. This episode was produced by Lori Galarreta Showrunner: Amanda Sealy Technical Director: Dan Dzula Executive Producer: Steve Lickteig Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Chasing Life. You know, the summer of 2005, that was a turning point in this country.
0:07.6	Hurricane Katrina. It devastated New Orleans, the Gulf Coast.
0:12.2	1,800 people lost their lives more than that. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.
0:18.3	And in the midst of that chaos, something became undeniable. This was not just
0:23.6	a disaster about physical damage. There was a psychological toll that was just as real and just as long-lasting, if not longer.
0:33.6	I love you. I need you to survive.
0:38.3	At New Orleans' largest public hospital, the goal of the staff today that nobody dies.
0:44.3	I saw this firsthand.
0:46.3	We are at the point where it's developing nation medicine, probably without the power, without light.
0:53.3	I was in New Orleans during Katrina.
0:56.0	I was inside Charity Hospital.
0:58.5	The storm had just brought the city to its knees,
1:01.6	and it was total chaos.
1:03.8	There was no power inside the hospital,
1:06.4	and there was all these patients,
1:07.8	and it was hot.
1:09.1	It was August in New Orleans.
1:13.6	And every day, the doctors would load up some of the most critically ill patients onto these boards, onto these boats, and they would
1:19.5	paddle them across the flooded waterways from the hospital to the parking deck, and then carry
1:25.5	him up this parking deck to the very top
1:27.9	and hope that a helicopter might land and evacuate them.
1:31.9	What's going to happen to some of these patients if you don't get them out of here?
	...

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