Flood of major storms heightens stress levels

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- Three major hurricanes to deal with in four weeks. Our adrenaline used up. A feeling that our luck might be running out. Our houses still darkened by the shutters from Frances, even as Ivan approaches. South Florida virtually hummed with stress Thursday.
"The tension is palpable," psychologist Alan Delamater said. He compares it to revving a car engine too high. People "get recalibrated to a very high state of arousal, so it only takes a little bit of stress to tip them over to the red zone."
Worse, Delamater says, many victims of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 may have a harder time than rookies in coping with this season's chronic crisis atmosphere.
"In some cases, all people need is just a new stimulus to precipitate memories of that. The coverage of Charley brought back a flood of memories. People traumatized by Andrew may be reexperiencing it now."
Jim Lauderman of Richmond Heights saw himself in that description.
"If you went through Andrew, your nerves are shot every time there's talk of another hurricane," said Lauderman, shopping at the Publix supermarket. "And this hurricane is big."
Unrelenting stress can hurt physically, says Delamater, professor of pediatrics and psychology at the University of Miami.
Still, he stopped short of calling it a psychological crisis.
"A majority are doing all right. People are not running to the Yellow Pages to find their local psychologist."
Still, chronic stress can alter people's basic outlooks, another psychologist said.