MENTAL-HEALTH PROFESSIONALS WILL BRING SERVICES TO FLORIDA

Six area mental-health professionals will travel to South Florida later this month to assist hurricane victims.

"It may be that we will be assigned to a crisis response team or work at South Florida State Hospital," said Mati Stone, director of clinical services for the Community Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau.

Stone is one of those who will assist victims of Hurricane Andrew. Four other Community Counseling professionals are making the trip: Bob LeFebvre, director of psychiatric rehabilitation services; Judy Johnson, director of the adult outpatient department; Jim Berry, director of the counseling center's Ste. Genevieve office; and Dr. Bob McCool, a psychiatrist.

Also making the trip will be Connie Lape, director of social services at Southeast Missouri Hospital.

Stone said she and three others on the team are licensed clinical social workers. A fifth is a professional counselor.

She said they are tentatively scheduled to leave for south Florida on Sept. 27, and will spend at least eight days there. She said they will probably work 12-hour shifts.

Stone said their temporary home may be a tent city. "We have been told to bring water and to bring food for ourselves and insect repellent and sun screen."

Nationwide, a number of mental-health professionals are volunteering their time to assist hurricane victims.

There is a great need for mental-health professionals in the aftermath of the hurricane, Stone said Wednesday.

"The reason that they need professionals is that mental-health facilities in the direct path of the hurricane are severely understaffed because many of the staff were left homeless themselves," she said.

The mental-health center in Homestead, for example, ordinarily operates with a staff of 300. Currently it is operating with less than half of its regular staff, said Stone.

"Given the hurricane, the work is far from routine," she said.

Persons with a prior psychiatric disorder are more likely to experience increased problems in the wake of the hurricane, she said.

Coping with the "terror" of the hurricane is also a problem, said Stone.

"The people who had to survive in closets and hallways while the houses fell apart on top of them, these people were exposed to prolonged terror and they are at risk of developing psychiatric disorders," she said.

"In addition to terror during those hours (of the hurricane), there is the aftermath," said Stone, "where they have to come out of the rubble to find destruction around them."

She said those people must cope with no electricity or running water. "There are no street signs; there are no traffic signals. The usual landmarks are not standing, so folks are in a state of shock," said Stone.

"Now as people begin to come out of the immediate shock, they are going to be facing the reality around them," she said.

"I was raised in south Florida and I speak Spanish, and I could understand how severe the problems would be there."

Stone said the Rev. Miles White, pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Cape Girardeau, is helping to plan the disaster relief mission, although he will not be making the trip. She said he had experience in disaster relief while in military service.

Lape said she is looking forward to assisting hurricane victims. "I just think we should try to help people with these tragedies. You hope if you were on the other end, somebody would be able to help you," said Lape. "I just think it is good for neighbors to help neighbors and people to just pitch in."