Eight nurses from the Alabama Department of Public Health have traveled to North Carolina to assist at American Red Cross shelters. The shelters will stay open until Nov. 4, but some are already closing, leaving many residents without a place to go.
“One lady, she had a stroke, I think [because of] the stress of the whole situation. We’re seeing a lot of that,” Lisa Jones, an Alabama nurse volunteering at the shelters, told the Alabama Daily News. “The mental health status of people here — I don’t have words for it. They’re scared. Some of them already had mental health issues, and this has just exacerbated that. We have a lot of people [whose] mental state is such that they’re manic; they’re running around, they’re washing their hair 15 times a day.”
Those who are displaced tend to be older adults or people with disabilities, who are already more likely to struggle with mental health conditions. As shelters shut down, displaced residents’ mental health struggles are expected to worsen, with many lacking alternative housing options.