By: Sam Wooley
Today we went on a tour of Audobon Zoo. We met with the zoo’s head of security and emergency management and discussed the special challenges that come with having wild animals in emergency situations. The zoo has to have a lot of contracts for things like food and water during and after hurricanes. This is because the animals always shelter in place and are never moved unless their enclosure is severely damaged and they need to go to another zoo after a disaster.
After this we walked around the zoo and were told to look for things that would have to be considered in disasters or to prevent injury. People pointed out things like trees falling and having procedures about handling dangerous animals. We learned about something called 2 keepers, 2 keys which means that dangerous animal habitats require two physical keys and two separate people enter enclosures. We also learned that animals are classified using a code system of blue, yellow or red so that everybody knows the threat level in case of an escape. We were given the example of a Jaguar who escaped a few years ago which was a code red situation. They were able to get it back to its home.
After the zoo we went back to the dorms for lunch and a short break before starting a lecture on an island that we will be visiting called Isle de Jean Charles. This island was home to a native tribe that was forced to move because of severe damage and loss of land from hurricanes and sea level rise, and erosion from oil & gas extraction and transport. The tribe was able to win a competition that gave them money to move inland but there were many problems. Only some of the tribe were able to get new houses and they aren’t allowed to fix their old houses on the island any more. The construction of the new houses also took about 20 years. When this begins to happen to other places because of climate change, it may take too long to move everybody. Isle de Jean Charles was the first town to be seen as too far gone to save by local government but it will not be the last.
Next we met a therapist that talked about mental health in disasters. He talked a lot about mental health in people experiencing homelessness and how that makes emergency management difficult especially during Covid. He also talked about what trauma means and how many people are affected by PTSD from disasters. After hurricanes and tornadoes, things like depression, substance abuse and suicide rates all rise. With a place like New Orleans that already has a large population of people with mental illness and a lack of mental health services this can make the issue much worse.