Contact Louis Trachtman, M.D., M.P.H

Dr. Louis Trachtman gives interesting historical insight into the unique aspects of Hurricane Katrina and the efforts to shelter those in need of assistance:

"Years ago they’d set up a shelter in the City Hall, but in more recent years since the Superdome was built, it was in the Superdome. And in recent years, it’s been just for persons with special health care needs or, in other words, the handicapped or the chronically ill. Homebound, not hospital-bound chronically ill. We were lucky in the past because they did set up special areas in the Dome for the special needs patients. The most we have ever had in the Dome was 30-50 people . . . The special needs people, of course, are instructed to have an attendant with them, although once in a while they live all alone. They have no relatives. They have come out alone. They bring their medicines or their oxygen or their inhalers for asthma . . . small medical equipment that they may need. . . They bring their own. And if there is anything special that’s needed in the way of medicine, Charity Hospital was two blocks away . . . There were ambulances standing by; they could bring things back and forth.. Or if the weather was not too bad . . staff could even walk to the hospital and bring it over. . . If there was flooding from a lot of rain, it may have . . . drained off in a few hours. And never more than say a few inches of water. Katrina was a totally different story. And remember, in the past it was always voluntary evacuation; so people who were homebound or needed special care . . . got themselves somehow to the shelter well before the storm was expected to hit. . . The numbers were not great . . . Things were much more orderly. With this, there was a mandatory evacuation of the city issued less than 24 hours before the storm hit . . . So at one time there were up to 1,000 special needs patients in the Superdome in the area designated for special needs people."