Reported Emotional Stress Following a Disaster

The social effects of disaster upon this quasiisolated rural area are still in the process of becoming. Seventeen months after the storm, references were continually being made to this disastrous event and to pre and post conditions of community institutions and activities. Regarding those dire predictions of panic behavior that would ensue in American communities under conditions of disaster, it is reassuring to point out that for this small segment of American society there were practically no manifestations of hysterical or panic behavior at any time during the crucial periods of impact and isolation. This study in part substantiates the thesis of the toughness of culture in that a very substantial part of the pre-disaster socio-cultural systems survived intact along with their supporting values, with changes being fitted into the patterns of social life existent in the area prior to the disaster.