Coping with the Emotional Effects of Surviving Hurricane Florence

This post is for all of us in North Carolina, USA who are experiencing the devastating effects of Hurricane Florence.

A hurricane is a traumatic event. Whether you stayed at home during the hurricane or evacuated, during hurricane Florence and in the days or weeks that follow, it’s normal to experience symptoms of acute stress, including feelings of physical and emotional exhaustion, difficulty with attention and concentration, difficulty making decisions, increased feelings of frustration or anger, changes in sleep or appetite, crying spells, feelings of sadness, fear, worry, uncertainty, shock, or emotional numbness.

You may experience feelings of overwhelm about all of the details that have to be taken care of or all of the uncertainty that lies ahead. You may feel guilt that people you cared about died or lost their homes if you lived and/or still have a home left standing.

You may have lost family, pets, friends, or neighbors during hurricane Florence. You may have experienced loss or damage to your home, and/or your belongings, including irreplaceable items of sentimental value. Or you may have feared losing any or all of the above. It’s normal to experience the symptoms of acute stress mentioned above in response to these losses and in response to anticipation of the possibility of these losses. You may experience climate anxiety, climate grief, ec0 anxiety or eco grief related to concern about climate change and the increasing frequency and intensity of storms.

If you evacuated during hurricane Florence and weren’t onsite during the extreme storm, it’s also normal to experience any or all of the symptoms of acute stress that were mentioned above. Leaving home on short notice and not knowing whether what you leave behind will still be intact when you return is extremely stressful. You may also be facing the difficulty of not knowing when or how you’ll be able to get back home, as well as the stress of not knowing the condition of your home and belongings until you return.

You may be experiencing feelings of helplessness about not being able to handle any of the details from afar and not being able to help others from afar following hurricane Florence. You may also experience feelings of guilt about having evacuated when your friends and neighbors may not have had a place to go to. When you return home, you may experience another level of stress as you first see in person the scenes that thus far you have only seen in photographs or video images. You may be at a different phase of emotional adjustment than those who stayed during the hurricane who have had time to process some of the sights and feelings about that. Try to adopt an attitude of patience and compassion toward yourself and others. People handle the situation in a myriad of different ways during a time like this.

You may notice an urge to drink more alcohol or use other substances in an attempt to manage the overwhelming feelings. Though numbing out may provide moments of temporary relief from the difficult feelings, it merely prolongs the difficult feelings that you’re attempting to try to escape, and the physical symptoms from overuse of substances may make it more difficult to cope with all of the other symptoms of stress.

Things you can do to try to reduce climate anxiety and stress:

1. Keep breathing. Take a lot of deep breaths. A lot of them. In moments of anxiety, breathe in to the count of 4, and breathe out to the count of 6. This activates the part of the nervous system that can help to calm you down.
2. Try to meet whatever stress symptoms you experience with kindness and acceptance. Remind yourself that what you’re feeling is normal in response to a natural disaster.
3. Drink plenty of water, and eat healthy food. Access food at local disaster relief locations if you need to.
4. Try to stay in the moment as much as you can, and just take things one step at a time.
5. Ask for help from family, friends, neighbors, and disaster relief teams.
6. Limit your exposure to sights and sounds related to the disaster, especially TV and radio news coverage.
7. Try to practice patience. It will take time for our community to recover.
8. Get some rest when you have time to rest.
9. If you have trouble sleeping, try to see night time as a time to try to rest and restore your energy, even if you can’t sleep.
10. Try practicing meditation. It’s one of the things that’s keeping me sane. And research shows that it helps to reduce symptoms of stress. If you have electricity and cell service, you can download the SoundCloud app and find several free meditations that I have posted on my account at MeditateCreate https://soundcloud.com/meditatecreate
11. If you have energy or time left over from dealing with your own stress, try to help out others who need assistance. If you’re too busy or stressed from dealing with your own situation, use your spare time to rest and recover, and let that be ok.
12. Remind yourself of the times that you have successfully gotten through difficult times in the past. Recalling previous successes will help to build emotional resilience for handling difficulty in the present and future.
13. When your mind wanders to worry about the future, try to bring it back to focus on the present moment and what needs to be done today.
14. Make a list of what needs to be done and resources that you can access for support. The following post from Harper Peterson, local US Senate candidate, offers links to local resources for disaster relief aid: Harper Peterson’s list of resources. 
15. As difficult as this may sound, try to balance out the stress and grief with finding small moments of joy in the simple things, like seeing the sun again, hearing the sounds of birdsong, the feel of fresh water on your lips, or savoring hugs from people who care about you. Focusing on what’s good can help to rebalance your brain and help you to recover from the effects of acute stress.

If you are experiencing a mental health crisis

1. If you have a true mental health emergency and feel at risk for harming or killing yourself or others, please call 911.
2. If you are having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-273-8255.
3. RHA mental health crisis line can respond to crisis mental health phone calls for people from the following counties: New Hanover, Brunswick, Pender, Onslow, Carteret, Jones, and Pamlico. They can only offer crisis intervention by phone, as many of their staff have also experienced tragic losses from this storm.
4. Red Cross has emergency mental health services available at a local shelter:            Hoggard High School 4305 Shipyard Blvd. I wasn’t able to get an answer from the Red Cross by phone regarding whether they can handle medication refills at that shelter or not.
5. Try calling the Disaster Distress Helpline at 800-985-5990, though when I just tried their number, I was placed on hold for a good bit of time, so just be prepared to be on hold.
6. Try calling one of the support volunteers through Give an Hour, a non-profit that is expanding their services to offer free phone support to Hurricane Florence survivors.
7. Try calling NAMI Helpline (National Alliance on Mental Illness) 800-950-6264.
8. I am not currently able to find clear resources for assisting people with needs for medication refills or in person mental health crises. It’s my understanding that many physicians’ offices have been flooded or destroyed by the storm. I am told that it may be next week before medication refills can be addressed in the Wilmington area.
9. I will update resources here as soon as I become aware of them.

How to Support People After Hurricane Florence:

1. Listen. Really listen.
2. Don’t judge anyone for staying during the hurricane or for evacuating. You can’t imagine the agony that some of us experience over making the choice. Everyone made their choice for good reasons. It’s difficult and painful whether we stayed or evacuated.
3. Try to practice acceptance of whatever we are feeling. Please don’t try to cheer us up. When you move too quickly to encourage us to see the silver lining, it glosses over the difficult feelings that some of us are experiencing.
4. Ask how we are doing. And be prepared to hear how we’re really feeling. Keep asking how we’re doing. It changes, sometimes minute to minute, hour to hour, or day to day.
5. Keep listening when we want to talk about it.
6. Don’t push us when we don’t feel like talking about it.
7. Ask what you can do to help.
8. Donate money, cleanup items, food, or home furnishings to nonprofits in our community that are coordinating disaster relief. Email New Hanover County HurricaneRelief@nhcgov.com or call 910-284-9713 for information on how to volunteer or make donations.
9. Be patient with us. It will take time for us to recover.
10. Ask again what you can do to help. Keep asking. Our needs change sometimes daily.

Many of us will recover emotionally over the coming weeks with time and the support of family and friends. Some of us will continue to experience ongoing symptoms of stress and may need mental health support in order to recover. Please seek mental health support from a licensed mental health provider if you need it, by phone or in person as it becomes available. I will continue to update this post as I learn of additional resources.

If you’d like to receive more mindfulness education and inspiration in your inbox monthly. sign up for my newsletter.

Sending everyone wishes for peace,

Jen Johnson, MS, MS, MFA, LPC
mindfulness teacher. coach. licensed professional counselor.