IMC featured on HDNet’s Dan Rather Reports

More than a year after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf coast, close to 85,000 people still live in temporary housing, much of it in trailers supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, better known as FEMA. Conditions in the FEMA trailer parks have been a subject of considerable controversy.

PHOTO: IMC A typical FEMA trailer.

“The depression rates that we found were similar to depression rates that we found in Afghanistan, similar to the rates that we found in Darfur, similar to the rates that we found in Iraq, and similar to many of the other countries that have been studied,” Lawry told Rather.

HDNet, now in its sixth year, produces and televises more hours of high definition news sports, and entertainment programming each week than any other network. Rather, long the face of CBS’s Evening News, began working with HDNet earlier this year.

Lawry has conducted ground-breaking research on living conditions for those who were displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In addition to extremely high depression rates, Lawry found that tens of thousands are at risk for suicide and post traumatic stress disorder. Her full report, which sets the plight of Katrina’s victims in a global context, is scheduled to appear in the January issue of the journal, Annals of Emergency Medicine.