Learning From Hurricane Andrew About the Impact of Disasters on Marriages

Sociologist Betty Morrow, warns people caught up in the horror that Katrina left behind that the best advice she can give to them is to be patient. "Even under the best of circumstances it's going to take not weeks, not months, but years to get back to anything that you might call normal." Morrow studies disasters and did a ten-year study of Hurricane Andrew.

She also said on Primetime that the impact of a disaster such as Katrina on families "depends on what the family was like before the storm. Strong families tend to go through this together and come out stronger at the end. But for families that might be having problems, even within their household or with other relatives, these kinds of things can certainly make it worse. We saw at least an indication that there were more divorces in the year after Andrew than there had been — the rate had gone up a little. There were certainly reports of more domestic violence." Read more...