|National Alliance on Mental Illness page printed from (800)
950-NAMI; firstname.lastname@example.org In Sandy’s Wake:
Managing Mental Illness after a Disaster and Finding Support By
Courtney Reyers, NAMI Director of Publishing Studies from a
prior earthquake in Taiwan suggest that individuals living with
serious mental illness are at risk for getting sicker after
disasters.1 Here, in the U.S., Superstorm Sandy displaced
hundreds of thousands of people from their homes—with more than
70,000 homes and businesses being destroyed in New Jersey alone.
The storm also claimed 47 lives in New York, 24 in New Jersey
and in the end was responsible for more than 100 deaths in the
U.S. The stress and horror of a natural disaster of such
magnitude not only makes receiving mental health care difficult
or impossible, it can also serve as a catalyst for episode onset
or cause major stress, anxiety, depression and posttraumatic
stress disorder. A report by the National Council on Disability
identified several problems that m