Natural Disasters Essay ⋆ Education Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Natural disasters can come in the form of hurricanes, floods, wildfires, tornadoes, and earthquakes. While such events are challenging and frightening for adults, the effect on children can be even more devastating as familiar routines, seemingly safe environments, and stable relationships are seriously disrupted. Schools potentially play a critically important role in the recovery process after a natural disaster, by providing shelter, counseling, continuity, and help to parents by caring for their children as they cope with the task of rebuilding their lives and their community. This entry looks at some research on the impact of disasters on schools and provides some guidelines for response.

Hurricanes

Disasters such as hurricanes are not as sudden or as terrifying as earthquakes or tornadoes, but their impact is often much more widespread. Hurricane Andrew, which hit South Florida on August 24, 1992, was a natural disaster experienced by virtually everyone in the southern half of Miami-Dade County. Storm winds were recorded as high as 169 miles per hour. Approximately 250,000 people were left homeless and 1.4 million people were left without electricity. Total damages were estimated at over $30 billion.

Hundreds of thousands of children experienced the terror of the storm—many barely survived its winds. For several years after the hurricane hit, teachers reported how students would be visibly agitated in their classes if the wind suddenly rose or there was a heavy rain. Parents, teachers, and community leaders were faced with the problem of how to help traumatized children after the storm.

Eugene Provenzo and Sandra Fradd, in the 1995 book Hurricane Andrew, the Public Schools and the Rebuilding of Community, explored at length the role the schools played in the recovery process after the storm. Besides providing critical shelter to members of the community when the storm hit, and a refuge for people after they lost their homes, the schools also were central to the rebuilding process and the reestablishment of a normal environment. By simply opening several weeks after the storm, the schools conveyed the message, “We are returning to normal. Life goes on.”

Fradd and Provenzo’s research concluded that a natural disaster such as a hurricane should be understood as an event that affects the entire community, not just those who experienced the main destruction. Ripple effects such as traffic, a shortage of housing, and the destruction of commercial and public buildings and services all shape and affect the larger community. Teachers and schools, because of their high visibility and their sheer numbers, are particularly important in the recovery process. Schools, and the teachers, counselors, and administrators who work in them, also have the ability to identify the children in greatest need and provide them with appropriate counseling and help in recovery.

After Hurricane Andrew, Annette La Greca and her colleagues at the University of Miami developed a manual for working with elementary school children following a natural disaster. The manual emphasized the importance of the children’s being able to discuss and share their experiences, to develop coping skills, and to maintain and strengthen friendships and networks of peer support. This last point is particularly important, since children often lost friends from before the storm when families moved to new neighborhoods, or even permanently left the region.

The lessons learned after Hurricane Andrew about the role of the schools in the recovery of a community applied in much the same way to the recovery process after more recent storms such as Hurricane Katrina, which struck South Florida first and then New Orleans in late August 2005.

Response Guidelines

Other types of disasters require their own unique responses. For example, earthquakes and tornadoes provide very little predictability. Victims may be traumatized by massive destruction, during which what had seemed like a safe and stable environment a few minutes before is turned into chaos. Flash floods can work in the same way. While wildfires sometimes take people by surprise, they are more like hurricanes in being somewhat predictable.

Philip J. Lazarus and his colleagues have suggested that immediately following a natural disaster, a school crisis team should (a) identify children and youth who are at high risk and plan appropriate interventions, (b) provide support for teachers and other school staff, and (c) engage in post-disaster activities that facilitate healing. Recovery is frequently a long and drawn-out process. Communities are not rebuilt immediately, nor are damaged psyches quickly healed. Eugene Provenzo and Asterie Baker Provenzo (2002) noted that after Hurricane Andrew, individuals who, for whatever reason, were already stressed before the hurricane faced increased problems after the storm. Thus, people’s problems were exacerbated by the disaster.

Also worth noting is the fact that caregivers in many natural disasters are also victims of the disaster. This is particularly the case in a situation such as a hurricane, which can strike a very large area. As a result, caregivers, including teachers and other school personnel, may need special help and assistance as they deal with not only the needs of their students, but their own needs as well.

In general, natural disasters and their effect on school systems and children is an under researched subject. It is one which deserves greater attention in light of the fact that such events appear on a regular basis, and cannot be avoided, and have a tremendous effect on the functioning and effectiveness of schools and the lives of their teachers and students.

Bibliography:

Feinberg, T. (1999). The Midwest floods of 1993: Observations of a natural disaster. In A. S. Canter & S. A. Carroll (Eds.), Crisis prevention & response: A collection of NASP resources (pp. 223–239). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.
Jones, R. T., Fray, R., Cunningham, J. D., & Kaiser, L. (2001). The psychological effects of hurricane Andrew on ethnic minority and Caucasian children and adolescents: A case study. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 7, 103–108.
La Greca, A. M., Vernberg, E. M. Silverman, W. K., Vogel, A. L., & Prinstein, M. J. (1994). Helping children prepare for and cope with natural disasters: A manual for professionals working with elementary age children. Miami, FL: Department of Psychology, University of Miami.
Lazarus, P. J., & Gillespie, B. (1996). Critical actions in the aftermath of natural disasters. The School Administrator, 53(2), 35–36.
Lazarus, P. J., Jimerson, S. R., & Brock, S. E. (2002). Natural disasters. In S. E. Brock, P. J. Lazarus, & S. R. Jimerson (Eds.), Best practices in school crisis prevention and intervention (pp. 435–450). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.
Lazarus, P. J., Shane, R. J., & Brock, S. E. (2003). Responding to natural disasters: helping children and families: Information for school crisis teams. Retrieved March 26, 2008, from http://www.nasponline.org/ resources/crisis_safety/naturaldisaster_teams_ho.aspx
Provenzo, E. F., Jr., & Fradd, S. H. (1995). Hurricane Andrew, the public schools and the rebuilding of community. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Provenzo, E. F., Jr., & Provenzo, A. B. (2002). In the eye of the storm: An oral history of Hurricane Andrew and the South Florida community. Gainseville: University Press of Florida.

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