The Impact of Hurricane Floyd on Eastern North Carolina's School-Aged Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to understand and describe the experiences of children following Hurricane Floyd and its ensuing flood. Narratives from 97 children ages 7-12 were gathered using an open-ended question included in the PTSD Child Interview (Fletcher, 1996). Qualitative analysis, guided by a phenomenological design, was conducted on the data. Six themes representing the children's perspectives of the hurricane experience emerged from the analysis: (a) escaping the flood, (b) destruction and damage to property, (c) inconvenience and restoration, (d) concern for self and other's safety, (e) recollection of place, time, and event, and (f) thankfulness. This study helps researchers and clinicians understand the merits of Nicole M. Childs, MS, is affiliated with the University of Georgia.

‘Getting the kids back to school’: education and the emotional geographies of the 2007 Hull floods

“…Childs et al (2004: p. 40) cite ‘the value and importance in providing children with an opportunity to express their concerns and feelings about a traumatic event’ and ‘the need to educate parents, teachers and helping professionals on how to engage in a dialogue with children about a traumatic experience’. The above quotes illustrate the importance of this intervention in most of the study schools.…”

“…This research was based on the perspectives of head teachers, in future work we would like to also include administrators, school counsellors, and most importantly school children. As Childs et al (2004) note with reference to the impacts of Hurricane Floyd in the United States, it is not certain that the findings reported by adults would replicate the accounts of children. There is a paucity of research that examines a child's experience of disaster.…”

“…Although there is little literature on the impact of flooding on schools, there is considerable literature relating to the experiences of children following a disaster (see e.g. Blom, 1986;McFarlane, 1987;Saylor, 1993;Vogel and Vernberg, 1993;Lonigan et al, 1994;Shelby and Tredinnick, 1995;Gibbs, 1996;Lubit et al, 2003) and on the way that flooding has affected children (Earls et al, 1988;Swenson et al, 1996;Saigh et al, 1998;Childs et al, 2004). Within this body of research, the focus has been on children's individual experiences, not the social context as is explored in this paper.…”

“…Childs et al (2004), in a study of the impact of Hurricane Floyd on school‐aged children in North Carolina [based on an application of the child post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reaction index instrument], state that 81% of the children displayed mild to very severe symptoms of PTSD. This level of trauma is understandable (and indeed common) in the short term following exposure to a traumatic event.…”

Flooding and schools: experiences in Hull in 2007

“…Blom, 1986;McFarlane, 1987;Saylor, 1993;Vogel and Vernberg, 1993;Lonigan et al, 1994;Shelby and Tredinnick, 1995;Gibbs, 1996;Lubit et al, 2003, Weems et al, 2009) and more specifically on the way that flooding has affected children (Earls et al, 1988;Swenson et al, 1996;Saigh et al, 1998;Childs et al, 2004) focuses on children's personal experiences,. The levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which are common in the short term (Swenson et al 1996) and which sometimes persist following exposure to a traumatic event may be regarded as the 'normal' reactions of those people exposed to an abnormal disaster event (Alexander and Wells, 1991;Yehuda et al, 1998), but they are nonetheless significant in their potential effects on students' abilities to learn.…”