1999 - 2000 Broadcast Season
Broadcast Program Transcripts
Episode #1506

Holloway: And good evening everyone and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I am your host Jay Holloway, and tonight we continue the focus on our neighbors in the eastern part of North Carolina. It is Thanksgiving-Day weekend, and while our thoughts are turned towards family and giving, there is no better time to talk about the needs of children and families and learn about some of the state-services that the State is providing to those who are recovering from disaster and are ______ related to you no matter where you are.

To help supply us with some of that information tonight, we have with us Dr. Steve Klein, Section Chief of Epidemiology in the Department of Health and Human Services. Thank you for being with us Steve. Also Dr. Wayne Matthews, specialist with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. Dr. Matthews, thank you for being with us as well. We won't be taking your calls tonight, but do join us next week with your calls and we will be there live. We are celebrating Thanksgiving like you are this Friday night as well.

Lets talk about these services that you all may provide when we think about families now and people at home with their families on this Thanksgiving holiday evening. What services do the Department of Health and Human Services and the North Carolina Cooperative Extension provide to people in general across our state, but especially those who need it most now in our eastern part as Hurricane Floyd victims? Steve, you want to start?

Klein: Yes, I'd be glad to. We are, the local Public Health departments have been an integral part of this response in these communities. Many people take their local health departments for granted, but Public Health has been a major effort in responding to these people's needs in these communities. Particularly we are working with them to know how to go back into their homes and when it is safe to go back into their homes and how to be safe when they are trying to do the clean-up that is necessary. We had over 40,000 homes in eastern North Carolina that were damaged by the flood, and some of those we can repair, some of them we can't, but there is a lot of work ahead as people try to move back into those homes. And we are there to try to explain how to do that safely.

Holloway: That is going to be a long time to come too in repairing these efforts and recovery. Wayne, what about the North Carolina Cooperative Extension?

Matthews: The Cooperative Extensive Service, Jay, in North Carolina has been around for about 85 years, helping families enhance their quality of life and under special circumstances that were brought on by the hurricane and by the flooding, we responded within a matter of hours. And within a few days we had information in the hands of our county extension agents, especially in the eastern part of the state, from topics related to Agriculture, Family and Consumer Sciences, which is the department I am in, we had a disaster relief web-page up within a couple of days primarily to be accessed by our agents who were in front-line positions working with those families. And we have information up on that web-site even today that people can access on a variety of topics in Agriculture, Family and Consumer Sciences and Community and Rural Development.

Holloway: Now we have been talking about this Hurricane Floyd flood-relief for the last several weeks, and through December we will continue to talk about it. I would imagine that people across the state, who are not in eastern North Carolina, are still wondering why this is such an important topic and has such an impact on the rest of the state. Why from your point of view is it still an important issue and should people be aware of this and how does it impact them?

Matthews: Well I think from my perspective at least, I deal a lot in the areas of stress-management, human development and the emotional reactions that people have to situations like this. A lot of those people in eastern North Carolina are going to experience, clinically it is called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. During the war it was called Shell Shock, and what that means is that there may be emotional/psychological recurrences of this disaster that will occur six months from now, a year from now, people may experience nightmares, there may be a variety of reactions that will occur down the line. Stress is going to pile up. It is not going to go away quickly even after some of the nuts and bolts efforts initially to recover are passed. They are still going to have some hang-over.

Klein: It has been an incredible experience for North Carolina, and that is not just eastern North Carolina. We want to acknowledge the efforts of the western part of the state who sent tremendous numbers of volunteers and professionals to help us do the hard work that is ahead in eastern North Carolina. We couldn't have done it without them. North Carolina has really poured out their hearts and hands to help the victims in eastern North Carolina.

But from a state-wide perspective, and what can the western part of the state expect to get out of this, I think we can say this has been public health and human services in action at their best. I mean we have really been out there, working with the people, going door-to-door if that was necessary, training professionals and trying to have good information available, and it is only going to strengthen our system. This was a disaster that hit eastern North Carolina but we have many similar kinds of issues and disasters that we need good human services in place for.

Holloway: This is particularly a good time for thinking about family issues and being with family. I would imagine that those affected by the flood, this holiday time is even more difficult for them. You've talked about stress: what kind of services are available, not only to those people in eastern North Carolina particularly, but across the state, free maybe from your agencies, to assist them with these issues?

Matthews: Well, the Extension Service is primarily an educational organization, and so our job first and foremost is to disseminate research-based information from the university and get it into the hands of the people where it can be applied to hopefully improve their quality of life. So we do have a lot of information available on holiday stress, and you are right, it is going to be a more stressful holiday season for those families because they are trying to do recovery and they are trying to provide a fun holiday maybe for their children and it is more difficult. It is not going to be the same as it has been in years past.

Holloway: Well, I would guess. Well, you know we've been talking with people in a particular family, formerly in the Princeville area, and Theresa Williams has been calling us and we have visited her and she is doubling up. I think a lot of families are doing that. If they didn't get specific help or assistance for temporary housing or someplace else. In this particular instance there are 30 people in one house. Now that would be stressful anyway. What kinds of things can they do? Can you give advice?

Matthews: Well, it is going to take an extraordinary measure of patience for people living in those sorts of circumstances, and research indicates that you get people packed in tight like that, it is going to enhance the stress, it is going to increase the stress. Individually and collectively. And if we don't take special precautions, I'm talking about the individual level, there is going to be increased irritation, maybe even some violence that occurs, because people are just packed in too tight. We need to try to help them to see the opportunities they might have to be able to get out, to be able to be involved in some activities outside that house, to be able to divert them a little bit from the stress that is experienced within that kind of a living situation.

Holloway: I'm going to ask to you comment on that, how it may impact the kids at school too, but let me ask Steve first: what about the health concerns of food, you know, people are probably tonight eating leftovers from Thanksgiving day. We saw all these hogs, maybe there is a lot of ham with the turkey, I mean, North Carolina lost a lot of turkeys, chickens, hogs. So what is the health impact in terms of food? Should people be concerned, not only in eastern North Carolina, about eating that food and around the state as well?

Klein: Well, our job is to protect and to promote public health, and a piece of that is just basic human living conditions, as well as the restaurant inspections and the food service. Food and lodging. So we inspect every restaurant, all the hotels, and before they are allowed to re-open, if they were a flooded facility, before they are allowed to re-open they must be re-inspected. The same with the housing units. What we feel like we can do best to help the stress that these people are feeling is trying to get them back into more suitable living conditions as quick as we can. And that means that we have got to do testing of their water systems. Many of these homes were on private wells, we need to make sure that those are again safe to drink; we need to make sure that their homes are safe. And if we can get them back into a better living situation then being piled up, I know from my own situation, we often double up on holidays and have a lot of extra family in and that is stressful in itself, but these families are also dealing with the huge trauma and loss that they have as a result of the flood. So we are concerned about that, and what we want to do is get their life back to some semblance of normal as quick as we can.

Holloway: So what specifically about the food, any need to be concerned about the food that you bought from the store, or going to a restaurant?

Klein: In terms of an open restaurant or in the grocery store, they are not selling that food, that food is as safe today as it was before the flood if they are open. But many of our establishments are making a decision whether it is worth it for them to rebuild, or if, there is a tremendous cost in rebuilding some of those facilities and they are not open. But if they are open they have been inspected and that food is safe.

Holloway: So Wayne, what about the kids now? We talked about the stressful things getting out, they are also out for the holiday weekend. How does that relate to the school situation in terms of the stress? How can teachers help and families help?

Matthews: I think just being very sympathetic towards the needs of the kids at this particular time, and realize what they have been through, because sometimes children are more deeply affected than maybe it appears on the surface, and they will reflect a lot of the fears of their parents and maybe even exaggerate those fears in their own mind, because if communication is not very clear in those families, sometimes children imagine things to be a lot worse than they really are. And there is going to be a lot of fear in the minds of a lot of these children because they have experienced some very horrible situations. And I think teachers need to be very sensitive and to be able to listen to some of the stories that these children have, and if they are very astute, to find creative ways to let the children express some of those fears, whether it is through creative art, creative writing, some of those sorts of things.

Holloway: I would imagine that a lot of us throughout the state have family and friends in eastern North Carolina. What kinds of things can we do to be helpful to them during this holiday season?

Klein: We have been heartened by the number of charitable organizations, churches, community based organizations that have opened up their resources to help these people, and that's been nice to see, because sometimes just a warm hot meal and a clean environment is a big blessing for some of these people who have been displaced. So we know if you haven't thought about some charitable giving opportunities, that is something that all of us can think about. And many of us do use this time of year to think about what we can do for other people. And if you can think about how you can direct that toward flood efforts that would really be great.

Holloway: And we just want to remind folks that there is always an ongoing need to support our neighbors in the east. Financially the governor has the relief fund, and at the end of the program we'll give the numbers, not only for that relief effort but to contact and learn more about what both of your departments and divisions are doing as well. And you can also contact us, we say to our audience. We also have a lot of information that we have researched on the World Wide Web, not only from your websites, so if you come to the UNC-TV Black Issues Forum website we have these resources, but some people don't have access to the internet. We've got this digital divide. What kind of information is out there on your websites that can help people with some of the issues that we are talking about and that will at least give them motivation to want to get it, and maybe we can help provide that information to them?

Matthews: I would suggest for the Cooperative Extension Service that there is a website, Jay, I'll say it slowly enough that people can hear, but very quickly, www.ces.ncsu.edu. That's the Cooperative Extension Service website. And on that front page there is a link that says something to do with disaster relief, and if you click on that it goes to a page that has an outline of all kinds of areas in agriculture, in housing, water quality, food safety. We deal in a lot of those areas. It's maybe a little bit different of a way than Steve's department deals with it, but we help people to understand about what they need to do next and try to help them in their recovery. That information is there. Now if they don't have access to the World Wide Web, if they are not into computers, they can call their local County Extension Service office. There is an extension office in every county in the state and on the Cherokee reservation. And so they can call that office, and those people can either provide that information or they can refer them to a place where they can get the needed information and help that they are looking for.

Holloway: And we'll give you that information at the end of the program if you missed it in terms of the website or even our phone number. Steve, some of the information is available?

Klein: Very similar, I think, as Wayne mentioned earlier, our website has been most effective in dealing with professionals and workers who we know are trying to respond to the flood in eastern North Carolina, and in the western part of the state, when they were looking for how they could be of assistance. So that's been most helpful. We recognize that some of the public education that needs to happen is not going to be very effective through the web page. So for that reason we have organized quite an effort around going door-to-door. We've worked with the historically black colleges and universities to go into minority communities in particular. I actually paired a university and their students with a particular county, and they are going to do some long-term work, first some public education with them, but then they are planning to stay in those communities as those communities start to rebuild and make sure that they have access to good information. We think that there is no substitute for that door-to-door, that one-on-one communication, because, as Wayne said also earlier, people are in different phases of recovery from this flood, and as they go through these stages, what they can hear and the questions they have change. And while we may be telling them this is something they need to be concerned about, they are much more interested in whether they have got food tomorrow rather than whether there is mold and mildew growing in their home. And so we have to constantly be repeating the same messages so that when they are ready to hear that, we have the information there for them.

Holloway: We talked about some of those initiatives unique to the minority communities, particularly with the historically black colleges with Dr. McBride two weeks ago. So I would say to our viewers, whoever you are, these historically black colleges, including Pembroke, are participating in that program. And each of your areas have either state health agencies or the Cooperative Extension throughout the state in every county pretty much, right? And we can get that information to you. Let's talk about the mental health aspect, and I guess we dealt with that a little bit earlier with the stress and those kinds of things. Anything else that you want to add to those issues of the mental health aspects of recovering from disaster?

Matthews: I want to take off a little bit on something that Steve said, and that is that there is a lot of diversity between individuals. And in stress management research through the years we found that there were a lot of factors that enter in. It is not just the hurricane and the flood by itself that enter in, you've got factors such as what resources do people have already available to them to meet the demands of that disaster? If you've got a lot of financial resources at your disposal, it's not going to be quite as severe a crisis for you as for those who may be already borderline poverty. Also, your perception of this thing. I've already had a discussion with one of our county agents in which in the same county there are two farmers, both of whom, well basically they lost all their livestock, chickens and turkeys. And one farmer just felt like it was the end of the world and it was, he was just at the bottom, he was depressed, even wondering if life was worth living anymore. Another farmer experiencing some of the very same situation, he says-"well, you know, this is tough, and it's going to take a long time to rebuild, but it could have been worse." And so perception, attitude, personality, there are so many things that enter into the equation in terms of how it impacts each individual and each family, that you can't have a formula that fits all people. And I like what Steve said about working one-on-one. Unfortunately you have a limited number of professionals in our organization that can be out there doing that, but I think the more one-on-one assistance we can give to individuals and families we can more tailor our information to meet their specific needs.

Holloway: Let me talk more specifically about the issues that this program deals with quite often. It's no secret that the majority, or a disproportionate, or of those people affected in eastern North Carolina were minority. But specifically the African American and Latino populations that were disproportionately affected. Are they getting the services that they need in an equitable fashion?

Klein: Public Health has served the minority population for some time. In many places they are the provider of choice for minorities and low income populations, and a safety net provider of a lot of services. That's not all we do. And so, but in this situation we have specifically directed extra resources, and our attention, to those communities, because their issues are different. Many of them lived in homes that we would have wanted to improve before the flood. And now when they are in this stage of trying to figure out what to do after that, they need a different kind of assistance, and more help from us, and we want to be there for them. So we can say that Human Service-wise, there is no greater priority for us right now than trying to be in those communities and working with them.

Matthews: And the same for the Cooperative Extension Service. We have never discriminated at all in terms of race or culture or anything else. We try to target individual needs of individual families regardless of those other issues. In addition, I might also mention, I haven't mentioned up to this point, is that we also have a Cooperative Extension Service at NC A&T Sate University, and they are part of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, and they have specifically targeted limited resource audiences in a lot of their programming efforts. And while I can't tell you exactly the specifics, I feel fairly confident that they have been busy trying to address the needs of some of the minority families in eastern North Carolina too.

Holloway: So is that one of the primary differences in what A&T's focus is versus NC State on the.

Matthews: That is one of the differences. That is one of their priority target audiences, is more limited resource families. And they work a lot on community education projects. But we deal in similar subject matter areas, NC A&T State University also covers areas of agriculture, family and consumer sciences and so forth.

Holloway: How do you balance between those 'haves' and the 'have-nots' when this flood was an equal opportunity flood, so it got the well-to-dos and the not so well-to-dos. But in eastern North Carolina you have this disproportionate minority population, who, as you already alluded to, were not as well off before this happened. And now they are faced with this natural disaster, a situation that they needed more assistance before they got into this, so it's a double whammy now for them.

Klein: It is definitely a double whammy, and we are trying to make that point in every opportunity. From our perspective, we are saying that the kind of help that you typically receive after a disaster like this is not going to be enough in these communities. That we are trying to get the word out that they need another level of assistance, another type of help that we can provide them in these communities. There are huge cultural identities in some of these communities that we want to preserve, if the communities want to be there, we want to help them be there. But it's going to take resources. And so we are in the middle of trying to balance the priorities. But Public Health is trying to sound the voice that these communities need our attention.

Matthews: There is no one organization that is going to be able to answer all the needs. And even with all of our best efforts, there are still going to be some needs that are unmet in those families out there, and I think that is where some of the charitable organizations and the churches have really come forth and provided some of those resources that maybe some of the rest of us can't provide. So it's a good time to remind folks and their families in their homes now over this Thanksgiving holiday weekend to go to some of these other charitable organizations, your church and others, and here is an opportunity to give while you are in the spirit of giving.

Holloway: Any final quick comments here? 10, 15 seconds each for you.

Klein: I don't want to sound Pollyanna but there is, at some point we want to take a look at what we are able to do in eastern North Carolina. And we've said that there were some less than optimal conditions in eastern North Carolina. We've heard of families being in flood plains that it is not a good idea for them to be there. We hope that after this is all said and done it will be better.

Holloway: Well I certainly hope so. I want to thank you both, we've run completely out of time now. I'd like to thank Dr. Steve Klein and Dr. Wayne Matthews for being here, and thank you for staying up late tonight on this Thanksgiving weekend. We hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving weekend and we hope you will consider helping those in need. At the end of this program we will have the telephone numbers that you can call to make contributions in dollars or donations for the flood victims and those who are less fortunate. So please grab a pen and paper to take those numbers down and we will be back next week with more live talk for your call-ins recovering from disaster. So be sure to tune in for the call-in.

For all of the Black Issues Forum staff and crew I am Jay Holloway. You have a blessed Thanksgiving weekend, and goodnight.

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