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Abstract: 

This article is a short first-person account of coming home to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. No amount of sensationalized media coverage could have prepared the author for what she saw as driving back into the city for the first time, even though the mayor had banned entrance to that part of the city. The vastness of the devastation truly began to sink in as she drove down the interstate past a gray, abandoned landscape. Occasionally, houses that appeared to have been blown apart by some violent force, their guts dangling out, damaged, sat waiting to be discovered by their owners. The author had requested a free video from Dr. Nora Baladerian, a clinical forensic psychologist from Los Angeles, regarding forensic interviewing of people with disabilities, but was asked in return about how people were making out in New Orleans, a question she could barely bring herself to answer. Baladerian emailed back an offer to come with a team of volunteers that she would put a call out for, to bring a trauma relief therapy to our organization. The article, and an accompanying article by Baladerian, describes those efforts.

Keywords: Hurricane Katrina; New Orleans; Nora Baladerian; trauma relief therapy

Affiliations:  1: Medical Center of Louisiana .