Transcript of Dr. Gratton's Discussion
The long-term effects of Katrina probably are going to range from mainly gastrointestinal type of diseases. The first ones we would be concerned with would be salmonella and an E. coli. The worst that we could probably think of past that would be something like a cholera. The reason we’re concerned with this of course is that we don’t have any drinking water per se within the city confines themselves other than what comes in a bottle. Without that drinking water, people are finally at a point where they’ve got to do something as far as drinking or bathing or whatever. As long as we’ve got the water in there and until they get it pumped out, any water we have in any systems in there is probably not going to be worth very much right now.
The best that we do can do right now is try and get those things. Those are the main utilities we have to put together. You consider that we have half a million people that live there that had to be moved out. All of New Orleans had to be moved out. So, with that in mind, trying to put that infrastructure back together causes a huge public health problem. Those people have moved out. They were there for a while. They may have come in contact with any types of diseases like I mentioned the salmonella, the E.coli and possibly cholera.
So, we’ve got some definite problems with things like that that I can see as a long-term effect. The other thing that could happen of course is that anytime you’re exposed to water like that, that may have E.coli in it or a chloroform bacteria, and there are several chloroform bacteria that’s a loosely knit group of bacteria that we kind of consider to be indicator organisms. If we have chloroform bacteria, we know that it probably had bacteria from the gut of a warm-blooded animal in it.
When you come in contact with water like that, you may have cuts and abrasions and you’ll start to see some problems; some skin problems right away. People may not realize they’re having any problems with that. They may have waded in water not thinking much about it. But, a lot of times what happens when you’re in something like that is that maybe a week or two down the road, you’ll end up with something that seems like flu symptoms; where really you do have these flu-like symptoms, but it may be caused because of your contact, your primary contact, with that water.
This is where I see that we’re gonna have some long-term effects.