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Katrina's legacy: Diseases will linger after clouds part
By David Steinkraus
Today we'll look at pictures of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, but this is only the immediate, visible damage. Such a large natural event brings with it natural consequences that can haunt the Gulf Coast, and areas farther inland, for weeks.
First you see the physical injuries, the cuts and broken bones, said Dr. Richard Olds, professor and chairman of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin and also a specialist in tropical diseases. But there are two more waves of illness expected from the storm.
Flooding will knock out wastewater treatment plants and water purification plants, and it will contaminate wells. "What happens, basically, is all piped water becomes very unsafe," he said.
And all those people you usually see on television floating around in boats, Olds said, are floating on water heavily contaminated with microorganisms. This is the first wave.
Cholera is a bacterium that, without proper treatment, can kill within hours through dehydration and shock. It's still common in less-developed nations because of poorer sanitation, but it has made a reappearance in the Western Hemisphere.
It came into Peru in 1991, probably with a ship, Olds said, and since then it has spread north and become endemic in the Southwest, notably in Texas and southern California. We don't have to worry about cholera here because we don't have brackish water, water that has more salt than freshwater but not as much as ocean water, Olds said.
"Any place that will drain will be fine," Olds said.
People bring their own problems with them, too, he said, and so health officials will have to be careful of respiratory and skin infections, even meningococcal meningitis which became a scourge on college campuses. All these diseases move among large numbers of people living in close proximity. People sheltering in temporary quarters, like the New Orleans Superdome, "They're probably OK there for four, five days," Olds said. After that,
risks mount.
Cleaning up the environment means more than waiting for the water to drain. In the case of the wastewater treatment plants, it could be a real job. These plants use bacteria to digest the organic matter in wastewater from sewers, and heavy rains may wash all bacteria out of the plants.
"The bacteria, they come in the wastewater naturally. That's constantly coming in. ... It would take a few weeks to build up a population," said Joe Mandala, superintendent of the Racine wastewater treatment plant.
A greater problem would be the mechanical damage, he said.
"Every electric motor that you have that runs any process will be filled with silt and debris," said Keith Haas, operations manager for the Racine Water and Wastewater Utility. In 1993 Haas was a flood engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Des Moines, and just days before coming to Racine a heavy rain flooded equipment and halted city water service for about five or six days.
A heavy-duty National Guard helicopter had to lift out the big motors, which were shipped to a restoration firm which cleaned them, dried them, tested them, and shipped them back.
"Fresh water is probably much more a premier concern," Haas said. There's comfort in being able to bathe, or wash your hands and clothes, he said. Then there are protective services; in Des Moines, a fleet of tanker trucks stood by to make sure fire engines would have sufficient water, he said.
Although this isn't hurricane country, there is still possibility for flooding and other natural disasters. The state Department of Health and Family Services has a section on its Web site devoted to disaster tips. Visit http://dhfs.wisconsin.gov/health/Injury Prevention/Disaster/flooding.htm to learn more about what to do in the event of a disaster.
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