June 10, 2099- Hospitals in New York have documented an increase ER admittance due to psychological trauma since last week’s tremor. The small quake, 2.3 on the Richter scale, caused little damage to infrastructure in
the city, but its occurence may have brought back painful memories for the survivors of the ‘74 quake in New York, which, as everyone remembers, was 8.8 in magnitude. In the years following that earthquake, about 70% of
survivors suffered from severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some of the symptoms were so bad that even Prozac was unable to alleviate them. And the bad news is, some of those symptoms may be coming back for New Yorkers.
            Haley L. Michaels, Ph. D., executive director of the New York Psychological Association, said that “it is normal for some people to feel anxious the week after a rattling tremor of this magnitude”; but she held the opinion that the more devastating symptoms, such as the multiple suicides which have occurred in New York in the last week, are probably a re-activation of the PTSD accquired in ‘74. Young Adults who were small children during the Big Quake may be particularly vulnerable to psychological symptoms such as anger, fatigue, inability to sleep, nightmares, withdrawal, and hyperactivity. Prozac and other drugs may help quiet these symptoms, but it also is helpful to talk about disaster
experience during this time.