A gas station sits on a small island above the floodwaters from Hurricane Florence in Lumberton, N.C., on Monday. Disaster experts categorize health hazards in the wake of disasters as short-term, midterm and long-term dangers. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)At a shelter in Lumberton, N.C., Makoma Patahalla recalled the last time he lived through a big storm, Hurricane Matthew in 2016. For more than a decade, clinical psychologist Jean Rhodes has studied the mental toll on survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Many of the communities now contending with Florence were hit two years earlier by Matthew, noted Andrew Short, chair of the disaster response task force for the North Carolina Psychological Foundation.

Source: Washington Post September 18, 2018 00:00 UTC