Hurricanes Leave Doctors', Dentists' Lives in Limbo

Sept. 28, 2005 — -- Dr. Sid Ross and his wife of 42 years rode out Hurricane Katrina at a local hotel near their home in Moss Point, Miss., but his business was not so fortunate.

Ross, a 20-year Navy veteran who also holds a degree in medicine and served more than 8,000 of Moss Point's residents before the storm, has experienced a lot in his lifetime, but little prepared him for what waited outside the hotel's walls once the storm passed.

"After we got out and started looking around and saw the devastation, our hearts just sank," he said.

His practice and several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment were underwater, and his home -- once in a beautiful riverfront community -- had become an inaccessible island surrounded by floodwaters.

Ross, 62, is one of about 6,000 doctors who were displaced by Katrina, according to a new study conducted by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Many have lost both their homes and their livelihoods -- practices that in many cases had been built through decades of hard work and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"My office was in a shopping complex and the only thing left in that shopping complex is the sign from my office," said Dr. Andrea Elenbaas, a Long Beach, Miss., dentist.