Health problems abound months after Katrina roared ashore

BILOXI, Miss. - Three months after Hurricane Katrina raked the Gulf Coast, a major health crisis is emerging as residents struggle with the fouled air, moldy houses and the numbing stress the killer storm left behind.

Across Mississippi and Louisiana, people are afflicted with coughs, infections, rashes and broken limbs and they are jittery, tired, depressed and prone to bizarre outbursts, health professionals said.

Burning storm debris, increased diesel exhaust, runaway mold and fumes from glue and plywood in new trailers are irritating people's lungs and nasal passages. Weary residents trying to clean up and repair their homes are falling off roofs and cutting themselves with chainsaws. And stress is fracturing the psyches of countless storm victims.

"It's a cumulative effect here," said Claire Gilbert, a New Orleans surgical technician who works in a Louisiana occupational medical practice and volunteered at the New Waveland Clinic, a tent shelter complex that just closed in Mississippi. "You get a little cough. You get a nose that runs. You get eye irritation. Then you get falls. And you've got the stress. It's not just little things. It's how they all add up."

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