Mental Health Support Matters in Disaster Recovery: How Congress can Help

By Michael Gray, advocate, team builder, federal lobbyist, and former deputy director of NAMI Maryland, Inc.

The river flooded again. It was a matter of time. But with this flood and perhaps with future events, the federal government may not lend its hand as it has in the past. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) denied my classmates and former neighbors financial relief. The behavioral health implications of surviving a natural disaster are worthy of FEMA support.

Every few decades, Little River exceeds its banks. The name “Little River” is not a euphemism, but the title of a stream that snakes through and defines Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The river gave its water to early settlements and dictated the city’s geography.

Growing up in Hopkinsville during the 1990s, I learned that Little River’s watershed was the lifeblood of Kentucky’s second-largest county by land area, and how we staked our economic presence through agriculture, which necessitated its water. The river and its tributaries supplied that farming economy.

By the time I was old enough to understand simple economics, the relevance of Little River had changed. Family farmers, like my grandfather, had sold their land to larger operations with vast irrigation schemes to nourish their crops. I was still conscious of the river for two reasons—there was the hiking trail from a public library to a park and back that followed the bank and often brought me in contact with neighbors and school friends. However, there was also the omnipresent knowledge that the river could flood.

When my grandfather started his farm in the 1950s, a flood meant personal disaster for farmers and their trading partners. When Little River flooded in 1997, most people directly impacted were the descendants of those unlucky enough to still live near the library and courthouse. As with so many southern and midwestern cities, downtown lost its desirability with the rise of late twentieth-century residential and retail relocation to the outskirts of town.

With the 1997 flood, my grandparents and other members of the Greatest Generation kept reminding everyone of their early childhood memories and the Great Flood of 1937. I was only eleven, and too young to realize that the demographics of people living near the river had inverted in those six decades. The people living in fear of rising waters were, by then, lower-income, less likely to be steadily employed, and far less likely to have housing alternatives when their apartments or houses flooded.

This summer, Little River flooded again, accompanied by straight-line winds that uprooted trees and caused serious damage to the community. FEMA denied Kentucky’s request for Individual Assistance on July 29. Not just Hopkinsville, in Christian County, but Trigg and Leslie counties were also denied aid. The collective trauma resulting from natural disasters like the storms and subsequent flooding that swept through Kentucky this year will lead to behavioral health fallout for members of communities like Hopkinsville. 

When natural disasters strike, underfunded community mental health systems, neglected by all levels of government for decades, are left scrambling to provide trauma-informed practices needed to help people and communities impacted by horrible events. This is not just true in those Kentucky counties; it happens nationwide.

Congress has the opportunity to address these gaps in disaster response through the Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act (CMWRA). This bipartisan legislation would establish federal funding for community-based mental health programs, science-backed and trauma-informed disaster response, and resilience-building initiatives that recognize the full scope of impact. 

CMWRA would ensure that communities like Hopkinsville have access to behavioral health support, creating a safety net that acknowledges trauma as a legitimate disaster consequence. I encourage readers to consider contacting their representatives to advocate for the passage of the bill. When natural disasters strike, communities deserve comprehensive federal support that addresses both the physical damage and the invisible wounds that can last for generations.