| When POLITICO E&E News reporter Ariel Wittenberg arrived in Asheville, North Carolina, to survey the damage left by Hurricane Helene, an unexpected sound punctured the stifling silence of downtown: squeals of delight. A pop-up summer camp was entertaining children inside a church with Frisbees made from paper plates and pink and yellow pompom balls with plastic spoons. The nonprofit organizing the fun for kids whose schools remain closed is called Project:CAMP. When disaster strikes, the group deploys a platoon of sleepaway and day camp directors who volunteer to help set up shop at a moment’s notice. But as Ariel reports, the group doesn’t provide only child care. It also helps kids cope with the destruction of their towns in hopes of preventing long-term psychological trauma — a serious problem that often goes overlooked. In preparing for natural disasters, children’s mental and behavioral health needs “are virtually ignored” at both the federal and state level, according to a 2009 government report. A 2015 report from the organization Save the Children found that less than a penny of every $10 in federal emergency preparedness grants was spent on children’s safety. Even less was directed at kids’ mental health. “Disaster relief wasn’t designed with kids in mind,” Project:CAMP founder Mikey Latner, who is based in Los Angeles, told Ariel. Mental health professionals in Asheville are already worried about the emotional toll Hurricane Helene is inflicting on the community given the slow pace of recovery. “People are feeling overwhelmed with the reality of the world we are living in right now,” Jen Nicolaisen, executive director of the local mental health nonprofit SeekHealing, told Ariel. In the 12 days following the storm, Buncombe and Henderson counties reported four overdose deaths and a near-doubling of the usual number of suicide attempts, she said. CAMP counselors and volunteers are trained in “mental health first aid,” and the programming is “trauma-informed,” Ariel writes. Counselors are taught to be flexible and empathetic when kids misbehave. “The hope is that we can minimize some of the anxiety and the [post-traumatic stress disorder] and just exposure to things that are hard right now,” said Beth Ford, project director at a local mental health nonprofit for teenagers.
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