Williams:  "Dr. Mc Nanamy, when did you realize that Hurricane Andrew might hit Miami?"

Mc Nanamy: "Oh, probably on Saturday, before the storm."

Williams: "What kinds of preparations did you make?"

Mc Nanamy: "I found someone who was willing to put up my steel storm shutters, we hurriedly went to the grocery store and purchased as many batteries and as much canned food and other things that we could possibly find, although there were so many people at the supermarket that it was difficult to find many of the items, and then we put gasoline in the car, came home and began to hope for the best."

Williams: "What were your expectations; what did you think it would be like before the storm?"

Mc Nanamy: "Well since I had been through several storms before, I thought that there would be some damage, but of course I never anticipated the extent of what would happen."

Williams:  "How were some of the patients reacting prior to the storm?"

Mc Nanamy: "They were not overly concerned, but of course some people thought that if there was a hurricane it would possibly do some damage.  But they thought they could stay in their homes, and just take adequate precautions."

Williams:  "Were they more anxious than usual?"

Mc Nanamy: "You see that was on a Sunday, and on Saturday we saw a few people, but they weren't particularly anxious because before the storm they were much more concerned about their own emotional problems:  their own family problems, their own concerns, because that's the reason why they come to see me."

Williams:  "During the hurricane, where were you when the Hurricane first began?"

Mc Nanamy: "I was upstairs in my bedroom but I soon decided that it was much better to go down stairs and sit in a room that did not have outside windows.  And that's what I did."

Williams:  "So what part of the house did you go to?"

Mc Nanamy: "I happen to have a kitchen that's on an inside firewall that's adjacent to the unit, the next door unit; I live in a town house, by the way - in a two story town house. And so I put the rocking chair in the kitchen and I took the battery operated radio and that's where I spent the night in the rocking chair:  It's a very comfortable rocking chair by the way."

Williams:  "And who was with you during the Hurricane?"

Mc Nanamy: "Well my dogs were with me, and what I had done was I had given them some medication so that they would get drowsy about the time the winds came up and remain drowsy for at least seven hours."

(Note: Doctor Mc Nanamy has a seeing eye dog, a retired seeing eye dog, and a guard dog that reside with her and her husband Tom Mc Nanamy at their home in South Miami.)

Williams: "How would you describe what happened during those events?"

Mc Nanamy: "We heard the wind.  Our particular town house apparently suffered the loosening of a gutter that was crashing against the side of the house throughout the whole storm so we heard that noise and also many of the peaked roofs of this town house complex have  metal lids that replace the turbines when there is going to be a storm and several of them blew off and they were rattling  around and banging up against the concrete walls of the court yards, so we didn't hear the wind as much in the room were I was sitting, but we certainly heard those other noises."

Williams: "And what were some of your concerns or thoughts during this event?"

Mc Nanamy: "That the front door wouldn't blow in which it didn't, that the shutters would hold and above all that the roof wouldn't blow off."

Williams: "Is there any one event in particular that has stayed on your mind?"

Mc Nanamy: "Yes, Yes, the next morning, ...I finally did fall asleep, and when I heard the telephone the next morning it was my neighbor calling me saying "Eve, are you alright?"  and I said "Yes I'm alright are you alright?"  and he said "Oh yes, I went out and cut the screen on my greenhouse otherwise it would have done a lot more damage than it did."  and I said, "Well please look out your window and see where my car is."  and he said "Oh, the tree missed your car, but you front door is blocked." 

Williams:  "And he went out during the storm to cut the screening?"

Mc Nanamy: "That's what he said."

Williams: "After the Hurricane, what were the conditions like in your home and in your surrounding neighborhood?"

Mc Nanamy: "Well of course we had to open as many windows as we could because we had no air conditioning, and we had no electricity, and we tried not to open the freezer. We did have water and we did have a telephone.  I was about, say, five or six miles from the devastated area, so even though the buildings around me were somewhat damaged and the buildings across the street were even more badly damaged, because apparently the storm was unkind to some edifices in the neighborhood, more so than others.  The church across the street suffered a great deal of damage and the roof came off the office building.  So people were out on the street and they were commiserating with each other because some of their screening had come down and some of the windows had blown in and the glass doors because not everyone had steel shutters to put up the way we did.  Then of course we were all concerned about the community swimming pool because all kinds of limbs and debris fell in the swimming pool."

Williams:  "When and how were you able to return to work?  Were you able to travel safely?"

Mc Nanamy: "Well we didn't even begin to return to work because our building was closed, we couldn't get into the building.  Our building had suffered some damage, half of the roof had come off, and some windows had blown in so it wasn't safe to come into the building because of electrical problems. So we didn't get in here (the office building) for several days.  Once we got in here we found out that our office was drier than the one across the hall because when the roof had come off the entire six floors of offices were pretty wet, but then when a temporary roof was in place, the following Saturday if you can remember, we had a rain storm and heavy gusts of wind and that temporary roof came off and then the whole building came off, including our office." 

Williams:  "What kind of help did you or your family receive after the hurricane?"

Mc Nanamy: "Well we really didn't need help except for from friends who were willing to bring some groceries to us from a northern part of the state. Of course, neighbors who were helping each other with clearing of debris to get into the houses, but otherwise we just held our breath and hoped that the people south of us would get just as much help as possible. We thought that we could get along and stay off the roads for several days in order to facilitate the traffic that would necessarily have to get down to the south area."

Williams:  "So what kind of help did you provide to others?"

Mc Nanamy: "Since I was on the telephone I was on the telephone to everyone that I knew to try and reassure them that things could get better and that right now the best thing to do was to avoid going out if at all possible, because of the danger of the fallen trees and the electric wires. But there were many many people that we could not reach by telephone and that's when we began to realize just how bad the situation was. Of course I had been listening to the radio over and over again, and the news people really did a magnificent job of reporting just what was going on during the storm and afterwards, so we did have an idea just how bad it was,  and of course so many of the people that have come to me over the years live in that south area and so many of the people that were currently in therapy with me live down there that it was very frightening not to be able to contact them, because I was then aware that if I couldn't contact them, that they couldn't contact anyone else either."

Williams: "What kinds of behavior changes did you notice in your patients after the hurricane."

Mc Nanamy: "Well it all depends on who they were.  Men just didn't come. Many people didn't come for quite a while because they couldn't come, or they had other things on their minds so we saw very few people.  The ones who did come were telling me stories about the extent of the damage and what had happened and what they had experienced.  And people were going through a period were they were rather numb as if this was something they had been watching this on television and it wasn't exactly happening to them. Some of them began to frantically call their insurance agents and often they couldn't get through. Then things began to change as the weeks went by and people were waiting for help. I didn't see people most of the time, for the entire time in fact, that they did not have telephones unless they were able to get a cellular phone because they also did not have gasoline and they were concerned about getting ice, and food and water, than coming to therapy. It was afterward when there was emergencies that I began to see them." "I remember one little boy who went with his mother to see their house that Andrew had "Blowed down" who became very very insecure, and this is a child who managed well most of the time very well, but he saw his mother cry and he saw his house just destroyed and  leveled and realized he didn't have his own possessions. He had been safely out of the city, but it was going back to that area, because his mother was afraid to leave him with anyone. You see people become very very anxious, if they were anxious before they get much more anxious. If they have been depressed before they certainly become more depressed. So this little boy become aggressive, he was angry, of course he clung to his mother at one point then he immediately came angry with her and hit her. His father was away helping with whatever he could help with the company because their shop, their store had been blown down and so he was transferred to another place and this little boy was aware that everything in his world had changed. Even now he was living with his grandparents in a rented house with his mother and father and with his Aunt because the adults  were often weeping or anxious or huddling together that it was difficult for him to sleep and he regressed back to a point were he wanted to sit on everybody's lap, and every time he saw and adult whom he viewed as a caretaker and whom he could depend cry he became even more disturbed and this seems to have been what has happened to the children.  I suggested that everyone spend quite a good deal of time with him especially his mother and father and play games with him about building buildings with blocks or with cards and then blowing them down and so he has began to feel very powerful that he could blow something down just the way Andrew blew it down. But I'm sure that it will leave some sort of mark on him that will possibly have to be dealt with later on.  The family is going to relocate to another state, you know there are many people who feel that they can't contend with what has gone on and they are going to be leaving the area for that reason."

Williams:  "Yes, that is a big concern."

Mc Nanamy: "In fact my neighbor, as soon as she could get gas in her car just packed a bag and left and didn't come back for two months. People deal with trauma in many different ways.  Many of the adults whom I saw tended to whatever they needed to at the moment, they rose to the emergency and did what they thought they could to survive. I fact some of them were even making jokes about it and writing all kinds of messages on their houses because of course all of the street signs have blown down and people couldn't find houses even if they were looking for them.  After this period of numbness, when after a trauma people usually try to insulate themselves even without being aware of it. People began to feel uneasy, the waiting and the uncertainty and the realization of their losses became appalling because when you think about it people lost their homes, they lost their way of life, many lost their jobs, their neighbors, they've lost the landscape. I've heard so many people mourn the trees and everyday having to see the desolation of an area that was once so rich in foliage is probably the most upsetting for people. They think that, yes they'll rebuild their houses or they can buy another house, but they can't replace the trees; the very large beautiful trees that were their friends.  This continues to be a loss.  They lost treasured possessions, all kinds of memorabilia. I know one of the volunteers who works with me lost, is about 80 years old and lost a lifetime of possessions that he had collected when he had worked in many many far places in the world. As well as many manuscripts, and he was so very upset that he chose not to stay here and went to live with one of his children in another country. The loses, there is loss upon loss upon loss, the teenagers especially lost their friends when they thought that they would not be able to return to their own high schools, they just couldn't imagine not finishing high school there. Then you see, if they were angry, at whom could they be angry, nobody made the storm, but they were often very very angry. Then as time went on people who had managed rather well and had moved their families often into grandparents homes were of course their was all kinds of traumatic instances were grandparents would welcome children for an afternoon, but day after day, also when many of the sodden and mildewed and wet items were brought into their homes, caused these grandparents to wish that these children just weren't here.  In fact, I had one gentleman who threatened suicide because of the situation of having his daughter's family and their children in their one bedroom apartment, it was and is and continues to be extremely difficult."

"Of course by now many of these people have found rental places in the north part of the county or in several counties further north. I was particularly concerned about some of our ageing population.  I tried to trace a long time friend who had worked for me for many years who lived in a retirement village and all the people had been evacuated, but I did not know of where they had gone, I finally found her in Palm Beach County and when I talked with her she was disoriented and she had come there with only the clothes that she was wearing.  She just couldn't understand just why she didn't have any clothes.  Of course, because she doesn't see well and doesn't see well, she did not understand that there would be any hope that she would survive in this strange place were she knew no one because the people of this retirement village had been distributed to many nursing homes and health centers and residences wherever their was a place for them. So the people who are the frailest have suffered the most emotional damage from the storm, since before the storm they had difficulty dealing with the usual trauma or perhaps personal exigencies of their lives. Now  they were completely displaced, disoriented, and felling rather hopeless about the future, because the waiting for the things to be rebuilt, or replaced, or redone now is probably the most difficult for everyone.  Since two months have gone by, and more than that now, we're beginning to see people who have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Which means because they were able during the initial emergency to manage as well as they could, now they are beginning to be triggered by items that remind them of what occurred during those hours of terror. They are having flashbacks, they hear crashing glass, or just some item that was in their view during the height of the storm will remind them of the wind. I've had one person that the minute the sky gets dark or overcast, when she is driving on the expressway gets very frightened.  People are becoming confused, people aren't sleeping well, they are having night mares, their having bad dreams. I've had one person who, well fortunately the whole family, and lots of stories about one family who is crammed into one little bathroom, but their are many people because of their terror during the storm are experiencing physical discomfort in many way and she said she was so glad she was in the bathroom, but what happens now, when she comes in a situation where there happens to be an object that will trigger her memory she will again have those same physical symptoms. People can't believe that this is happening to them, they knew about such a phenomenon that occurred in so many of the Vietnam War Veterans, and by the way they too experienced flashbacks because of the helicopters going overhead even though the helicopters were carrying water and supplies and groceries and tents and whatever they could get to the people in South Dade.  Many of the veterans became hypervigallent as they had been in the war, that means they were watching everywhere, and they were completely startled when the helicopters came over and of course it was hard for them to realize that they weren't enemy and they weren't evacuating wounded personnel. So what has happened now, when a person has this Post traumatic Stress disorder whenever they experience a flashback or whenever they relive a portion of the terror of the event, whatever happens to be within the present environment becomes connected to it."

"So now many of our Vietnam Veterans will not only re-experience what they endured during the storm, but also what they endured during Vietnam. It's just an additive. We try very much to encourage these people to be in a safe place and to try very much to talk about it, so that this memory that has been imprinted in their minds is just one scene on television that is just stuck there and won't move, hopefully will become fragmented to the extent that it will be absorbed and integrated into the memory bank, but this is troubling many people who don't understand why these things happen to them.  Of course people who have a job, and so many people have lost their jobs, especially when they lost their small businesses, a whole area as you know is completely gone. For those people who are working now who have this particular problem it is very difficult. They find they are unable to concentrate, they are unable to function at work, they really don't want to go to work, they really want to isolate themselves, they really are having a very difficult time. The people who are knowledgeable, who read a great deal, who understand what it is and go for help, of course are so much better off then those who will never even dream of going to someone, who think that they can't be helped and that this will continue to be their problem. I'm sure that this is the way with many of the persons who are out there west of the Homestead area."

"I heard from one person who finally came here, someone I had seen several years ago, whose entire farm was lost, all the farm animals were destroyed, all the fences, all the trucks, and the only reason that she had escaped, was that she was at the hospital with her mother who had to be taken to the hospital because she was very very ill and so she had remained in the hospital with the mother. She told me of the horrendous attempt she had made to go and find a sister and her children and she couldn't get into the area where she lived because of the fallen trees, the live wires, and the debris and how she had defied the police anyway and brought them out. Now in this area for possibly a week or mare people didn't have any help at all because the roads were blocked by trees and no one even knew how to get to them.  So they had to live through that. Many of these people really don't understand what is happening to them and they will just possibly do the best they can or they will just exist that way unless we are able to send help to them who can communicate with them who are able to understand the ways of the culture because  we have people out there who come from several different cultures and they are very suspicious of one another. This distrust has seemed to arisen everywhere we turn, people are so insecure that they don't feel that they can rely on what is the usual was of life, they no longer have a usual way of life."

Williams:  "Do you feel that more people are seeking counseling because of the storm than average?"

Mc Nanamy: "Yes, and I think there will be more and more, of course you know, we have a large number of mental health teams who are going out to be with people to talk with them to reach out for them and you know, also that many of the hospitals, well there are several hospitals that have psychiatric units that are no longer able to function and possibly they'll be set to continue on until after the first of the year, the people who were there had to be transferred to hospitals in other counties."

Williams:  "Do you feel that there are a rise in family arguments and other types of behavior patterns as a result of the hurricane?"

Mc Nanamy: "Well people who just bickered and were verbally hostile to each other are now hitting each other, so we do have an increase in domestic violence.  The children are being abused more than before, people are feeling much more fragmented, and people have so much more to do than before, this is the problem.  And of course waiting for money and having to just manage the best way they could, living anywhere they could, until, some of them, who are fortunate enough to get trailer homes, that now have been placed in their driveways, that they can be near their homes, their greatest concern was looters going in and taking whatever was left. This did occur, so people have wanted to stay with their homes but it was awhile before they could get trailers, and of course not everyone can.  It's the waiting. Now there is the situation where some people are getting through to the insurance companies and are getting help much faster than others.  These are people who live on the same vicinity so there is this feeling "well isn't it to bad that so and so is doing so much better than I am."

Williams:  "What are the positive outcomes that you have seen as a result of the Hurricane?"

Mc Nanamy: "Some neighbors are a lot closer in our community, neighbors have often not been very close because we stay inside air conditioned houses, so we don't have the opportunity to sit out on the front porch the way people do in a small northern community were the weather is easier.  So now that the windows have had to be opened, or there aren't any windows at all, and people are walking about outside more, people are more aware of who they are, they are talking more.  That's one positive outcome. I really don't know of too many except that the employment for one segment of our population has increased, and that's the trades people, the contractors, of course, with the the insurance money that people have they will begin to purchase items, replacement items.  On the other hand people are taking their money and they are spending it on other things, I don't think that they are aware that money that comes from the insurance company at a profited loss must be spent on replacement, because if it is spent on other things it is taxable income."

Williams: "Besides counseling what are some of the other things that you have been involved in with the community to help overcome the effects of Hurricane Andrew?"

Mc Nanamy: "I've just been asked by the employee assistance program of Dade County Public Schools to be one of the mental health counselors; one of the psychologists who is in private practice in the community to participate in the efforts that will be provided by a grant from FEMA. Psychologists like myself will be going each one to a specific school so that in essence that school,  the teachers and personnel of that school will have an opportunity to come and sit with me in their school for about eight hours per week so that hopefully that way we will be able to reach a great many people who ordinarily would not be able to seek out a private therapist. Because I will be on the premises and probably sitting in what we hope will be a very private office, they will take an opportunity to come and talk, and hopefully then if they need further help they will be referred on to whatever is available for them and whatever they need.  I think that that is very exciting, very important, and I am so excited glad that this is being done."

Williams:  "Is there something else that you would like to tell us that we haven't already asked you?"

Mc Nanamy: "Of course we hope that there will never be another storm, but we can't be sure of that.  Certainly this one happened and we didn't expect it. What I am hoping is that people will not forget because the scars that were left by Andrew will be here for many many years. Some may not ever be erased.  South Dade won't ever be the same again, I've been involved in the South Dade Chamber of Commerce for many many years;  I've been very much a part of the community in addition to sitting here in my office, and it just isn't the same.  It's so hard to be concerned with what we were concerned with before because now there are the very private lives of people that we have to patch up, put together, and hope that people won't be resorting to alcohol and drugs.  They'll be many more illnesses, they'll be many more people who will not function the way they use to, people will be so much more discouraged than they were before.  There are many people who have experienced great rifts in their families because of the great strain that they have had to put on one another. Besides that there are many children who will  forever be concerned that there life space won't ever be secure."

"I've had one little boy who was doing so well we worked with him and his parents for a long time and he is about eleven years old.  And now as you can imagine he has regressed back to the way he was several years ago with tantrum behavior, not doing well in school, he happens to be a child with Learning Disabilities.  These are the frail persons who will be the most affected and who will require the most support in the system in the future and I hope that people won't forget that."

Williams: "Well Dr. Mc Nanamy thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to be part of this interview and we really appreciate your effort."