Remembering the Health Outcomes of Hurricane Katrina A Decade Later: A Report on Katrina
Evacuees Discharged Post ‘Emergent’ Care in a Houston-based Emergency Department
A decade ago, US history was made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the Gulf
Coast region. Hurricane related disasters occurred over the previous decade.
However, none resulted in a forced, long-term evacuation of over one million Gulf Coast residents,
with ap-proximately 200,000 New Orleans residents arriving to a neighboring metropolitan
city by planes and busloads.
Overcrowded EDs do not have the capacity to adequately provide care to a surge of thousands
of patients.9 The forced, long-term evacuation immobilized the entire metropolitan health care system.
Limited data substantiating the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the health care system
has been published A quantified analysis detailing the increased demands on EDs due to the
translocation of a population post Hurricane Katrina has not been published.
Statistics of the patient population injured or whose chronic medical conditions
worsened after being displaced remains unknown to the medical and public
health community.
Interestingly, operations were at normal levels directly before landfall of the
storm as well. Following Hurricane Katrina, two waves of patients presented to the ED.
The initial wave of patients were local trauma patients. The second were patients with chronic medical
conditions who ran out of medication and/or access to specialty services such as dialysis,
methadone, or oxygen supply.
Dissimilar to the Mississippi study,11 this Houston based study described Katrina evacuees
with a system initiated by the local fire department, and refined by the study team.
Emerg Med Open J. 2015; 1(3): 96-104. doi: 10.17140/EMOJ-1-115.