PhD student Tanya Gulliver was interviewed by freelance documentary producer Tina Pittaway in The Day the Water Died, a documentary about how people in Louisiana and Alabama are dealing with the combined psychological fallout and stress of Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster.
CBC’s The Current featured the documentary June 9:
With flood waters wreaking havoc across communities in Canada and the U.S., the immediate concern is to make sure people are safe and to limit damage. Communities typically know how to respond quickly to the physical clean-up, but are unprepared for the consequences. The toll the destruction takes on mental health includes spikes in depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.
Gulliver, who studies disaster resiliency and recovery in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, volunteers in New Orleans providing mental health support to volunteers and victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster.
You can listen to the documentary on The Current’s website. Gulliver’s comments begin at the 16:39 mark.
Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– York University’s daily e-bulletin.