The Week That Was Hurricane Katrina and 20 Years of Ensuing Climate Change

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“It’s 20 years since Katrina and my stomach still hurts.” - Hurricane Katrina survivor

Remember the week that was Hurricane Katrina from August 23-29, 2005? Maybe we have forgetten its lessons since we have not made enough climate progress in the 20 years since its week of formation and devastation in New Orleans.

By virtually all retrospective scientific accounts, Hurricane Katrina was worse than it would have been without the accompanying climate changing. Yet here I was back in 2005, along with about all my psychiatric colleagues, paying scant attention to this progressing major social psychiatric problem.

It was not until about 2 years later, when our third grandchild was born, that my personal epiphany occurred. When the family soon visited us, I was asked to go to the nearby small grocery to get some items. As I was checking out, the clerk asked: “paper or plastic?” I froze and then realized the question really meant to me: what would be best for this granddaughter’s future? I actually answered “neither,” that I could carry the items. Thinking about it later, the best alternative would have been to bring your own bag but, even now, the clerks ask the same question. Some progress in the country has occurred by reinforcing the least destructive option for our environment.

At that time 18 years ago, I wondered whether other psychiatrists were concerned. I did not find any except Lise Van Susteren, MD. I soon found the informal online Psychiatrists for Environment Action and Knowledge, which after some time merged into the Climate Psychiatry Alliance (CPA), for which I and Lise were among the cofounders. The CPA has made great strides in appreciating the climate-related mental conditions and how we need to pay attention to them in the public and our patients. Related, my first blog ever for Psychiatric Times was posted on January 6, 2010, and titled “Why Psychiatrists Should Go Green.”¹

Unfortunately, all the psychiatry and medical organizations around the world have not been able to accomplish enough in preventing increasing climate instability. And so, acute climate and environment disasters continue to escalate, as in the recent Texas Hill Country flash floods and record high temperatures in Spain. Yesterday, there were risky weather warnings once again for the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada. We now know that plastic bags and bottles also produce the microplastics that get into our bodies and brains.

My wife and I had thought our Milwaukee was particularly safe for the future, what with a freshwater lake and tolerable temperature extremes. But we just had a thousand-year flood that damaged so many houses.

How best then to remember Hurricane Katrina as the days of its existence pass by 20 years later? It would seem that the devastation needs to be shown to the public and us in psychiatry over and over again the next few days. But that negativity is not nearly enough and will be intolerable mentally for some. There must be realistic hope for actions that have and will help slow down climate instability. That hope is not conveyed by focusing on the surfing that was enjoyed when Hurricane Erin avoided hitting land, only skirting our East Coast. That hope can be conveyed from the environmental changes of individuals with the ensuing social contagion, up to the global governments that are cooperating in reducing fossil fuel usage for more sustainable energy alternatives.

As touched upon by Zishan Khan in his cogent August 13, 2025, article for Psychiatric Times “Assessing and Treating PTSD in the Wake of Natural Disasters: Lessons From Katrina to Today,”² it is essential “that mental health remains a core component of disaster recovery efforts.” One study a decade later about Katrina evacuees in Dallas indicated that only about one-third of individuals with criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder and incident major depressive disorder received a mental healthcare referral.³ Black individuals in lower socioeconomic classes in New Orleans fared the worst. In the best of outcomes, there can be posttraumatic growth. For all our patients, we can be sensitive to the acute and chronic repercussions of the climate on mental health and advocate for our organizations to try to convince our federal government to roll back the cuts to productive environmental policies.⁴

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

References

1. Moffic HS. Why psychiatrists should go green. Psychiatric Times. January 6, 2010. https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/why-psychiatrists-should-go-green

2. Khan Z. Assessing and treating PTSD in the wake of natural disasters: lessons from Katrina to today. Psychiatric Times. August 13, 2025. https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/assessing-and-treating-ptsd-in-the-wake-of-natural-disasters-lessons-from-katrina-to-today

3. King RV, Polatin PB, Hogan D, et al. Needs assessment of Hurricane Katrina evacuees residing temporarily in Dallas. Community Ment Health J. 2016;52(1):18-24.

4. Van Susteren L, Moffic, HS. The Age of Thanatos: Environmental Consequences of the Trump Presidency. In: Lee B, Ed. The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Thomas Dunne Books; 2019.