Mobilizing in response to a major disaster

Abstract

In an attempt to meet the emergency needs of a major disaster in what some have termed “the greatest natural disaster in American history,” the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) responded immediately by dispatching a mental health team to Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, to examine and deal with the mental health needs of flood survivors. After conferring with local mental health workers and rescue officials, the team concluded that there would be long-term psychiatric sequelae of the flood and that NIMH would have a useful and important role in dealing with them. The team made its report to the Director of NIMH, Dr. Bertram S. Brown, who then assigned his executive assistant, K. Patrick Okura, the task of fleshing out the present mental health program of the area and finding out how NIMH resources could best be put to use in meeting the crisis. The NIMH program, in keeping with its tradition, consisted of three parts: services, training, and evaluation. Within a 30-day period a proposal requesting funds for a yearlong program of mental health services to the residents of the flood-affected area was approved and launched. This article describes “Operation Outreach,” as the program was called.