The human distress caused by floods rises with the water, but it doesn’t necessarily dissipate as soon as the flood-waters recede, disaster support officials warn.
“As the flood waters rise and leave, there will be a lot of stress and anxiety among Manitobans, and stress and anxiety is the thing that remains the longest,” said Gerry Delorme, director of the Office of Disaster Management for Manitoba Health speaking to reporters at a daily provincial media briefing late last month.
Flood costs are usually tallied in property losses. The effects of the 2011 flood on people’s emotional health are as real – just harder to measure.
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Emergencies – especially long, drawn-out ones, cause tremendous upheaval in people’s lives and the emotional toll often lingers long afterwards.
Manitoba has learned much over the years about how to support persons affected in both the short and longer duration.
Staff with Manitoba’s Farm and Rural Support Services said last week they are ready for the calls they expect will come after the flood, as people recognize the strain they’ve been under and how this spring’s events will affect them in the longer term, said FRSS executive director Janet Smith.
“Given our experience with BSE and other agricultural emergency situations, it’s not uncommon for the calls to come in after the fact,” she said. “I recall a caller who had been impacted by BSE two years later calling us and terming it the ‘BSE hangover.’”
Farm families whose land is flooded also face a tense spring ahead as they wonder when, or if they’ll be able to get on their fields, and contemplate the financial implications of another difficult year.
Provincial officials are warning elevated water levels could persist for weeks in some areas. (See related stories above and page 21 (Crossroads).)
“That’s definitely one of the things that we’re hearing about, if not immediately on the (phone) line, certainly out in the comunity in conversations with farmers,” said Smith.
“It’s not knowing if they’re going to be able to put a crop in or when that might happen and it is very wearing, absolutely.”
Support services counsellors don’t have any “magic answers” for anyone who calls, but they are there as “a place to vent,” Smith said.
Common signs of stress can include headaches, muscle tension, sleeplessness and trouble concentrating. A range of emotions from irritability, and anxiety to anger are all responses to stress.
“We try to help people normalize those feelings and let them know they’re not alone having them,” Smith said. And while “it sounds simplistic,” she added, there are things that do remain within one’s control even if everything else seems to be spinning out of control.
“Those are the things that are close to home, like relations within the family and their own health and well-being,” she said.
Finding ways to link up with others in the community can also be very beneficial, she added.
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“Givenourexperience withBSEandother agriculturalemergency situations,it’snot uncommonforthe callstocomein afterthefact.”
– JANET SMITH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FARM AND RURAL SUPPORT SERVICES
