Hurricane's Aftermath
"Howards community activism is a model of
chesed (loving-kindness) within
the Young Israel of Oak Park community"
Back From
The Gulf
A Southfield physician is part of a Michigan team helping
victims of Hurricane Katrina.
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Contributing Editor
0
ne elderly woman told Dr.
Howard Klausner of
Southfield she could not
understand "all the hoopla."
"Katrina, a disaster?" she laughed.
"Camille was much, much worse."
Most, though, were left stunned and
desperate, devastated by Katrina when
it hit the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29
But there was help — including
from Michigan.
Dr. Klausner recently returned from
Mississippi, where he was part of a
35-member Disaster Medical
Assistance Team (DMAT) from
Michigan that was part of the
National Disaster Medical System
team affiliated with FEMA (the
Federal Emergency Management
Agency).
The local physicians' team was com-
prised of experts in everything from
medicine to communications. It was
one of 30 teams from around the
United States sent to help in the after-
math of Hurricane Katrina.
DMATs are trained to be deployed
within four hours. Dr. Klausner
received a call one evening and was
off to the Coast the next day. The
group was flown to Memphis, then
drove with their portable field hospi-
tal to Gulfport, Miss.
Dr. Klausner, a member of Young
Israel of Oak Park, specializes in
emergency medicine at Henry Ford
Hospital in Detroit.
"In his easygoing and unassuming
way, Howard reaches beyond himself
to help those in need, wherever they
may be," says Young Israel of Oak
Park Rabbi Reuven Spolter.
9/22
2005
28
Dr. Klausner, right, with other members of the Michigan team in Mississippi.
"Howard's community activism is a
model of chesed [loving-kindness]
within the Young Israel of Oak Park
community."
Dr. Klausner has been on the team
for five years. He was on standby to
help victims of Hurricane Isabelle and
was in New York following the 9-11
terrorist attacks at the World Trade
Center. But the aftermath of disaster
is never bearable.
"The closer we got to the coast, the
more damage we saw," Dr. Klausner
recalls. "First I saw a lot of downed
power lines, then roofs completely
destroyed."
And finally, total destruction. He
remembers nothing more than con-
crete slabs where houses once stood.
But Dr. Klausner spent little time
surveying the surroundings. Instead,
he went right to work, beginning
Aug. 31, two days after the hurricane
hit.
He spent his nights and days work-
ing in a 24-hour field hospital, a
portable hospital in a temporary
structure that can provide extensive
care (just about everything but sur-
gery) for a maximum number of
patients. The hospital comes with
enough supplies to function for three
days and treat 250 persons a day;
extra supplies can be brought in
should the hospital need to stay open.
It's easy to imagine a scene of con-
fusion as patients, poorly bandaged
and still bleeding, drag themselves in
after being injured by the hurricane.
But this really isn't the case.
"We saw many emergencies, but
most were not a direct result [of
Katrina]," Dr. Klausner says.
Patients dependent on medication
(insulin, for example), came to the
hospital because they were unable to
secure it anywhere else. Others came
for a tetanus shot, a necessity in view
of the now-dangerous landscape.
"There were people who had sus-
tained minor injuries during the hur-
ricane which, under normal circum-
stances, wouldn't have been a prob-
lem," Dr. Klausner says.
But even a small open sore exposed
to profoundly contaminated water can
result in a severe infection.
"Many didn't have the means to
leave," Dr. Klausner says. And now
they've lost everything, and they did-
n't have a lot to start with."
Others couldn't have imagined the
devastating effects of water, he says.
"You can be a great swimmer, but
when a 20-foot wall of water comes
directly at you, that's not going to be
of any help."
Some residents told him: "My
house withstood [Hurricane] Camille,
so I had no reason to leave."
The medical team provided more
than care for the Mississippi residents.
The hospital served as a clearing-
house, with information about where
to find food and water.
Within a few days of working there,
Dr. Klausner saw positive changes,
such as power coming back on and
some homes with water back on.
What he did not witness: the kind
of anarchy that gripped of much of
New Orleans.
"There were very few reports of
looting, and people were very appre-
ciative that we were there and for the
care we gave them," he says. "In gen-
eral, people really came together."
❑