After hurricanes, impact on kids from trauma to academic struggles likely to grow, expert says

As Sarah Spicer was preparing to evacuate her Tampa, Florida, home ahead of Hurricane Helene, she said she remembers fearing the worst not only for her home, but also her 8-year-old daughter's beloved school.

In between packing up her life's contents and deciding what to save and what to leave behind, Spicer gave her daughter advice that proved prescient in the devastating aftermath of Helene.

"I just said, 'Baby, go to school today and I just want you to be really present,'" Spicer recalled telling her daughter, Blakely. "I want you to take note of the smell of the classroom, and I want you to look at your favorite reading corner, and I want you to think about the sounds of you and your friends laughing at the playground outside at recess. And I just want you to pay attention and be very present at school these next two days."

Just days later, on Sept. 26, when Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm along Florida's Big Bend Coast, the devastating storm surge flooded not only Spicer's home but also, as she feared, her daughter's elementary school with two feet of water.

Blakely, just two months into second grade, said that among her favorite things she lost in her school's flood were a story she had been writing with her best friend, her reading books, her word journal and her school's entire library. She said she also lost the sense of normalcy and community that a school naturally provides for kids.

"It made me feel not happy," Blakely said of returning from evacuation and seeing her school destroyed, adding of her last conversations with friends, "We were like, 'I don't want this to be the last time we're probably going to see each other for a month.' Everybody [was] crying."

Across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, Helene's devastation closed schools and disrupted children's entire lives through evacuations, displacements, the loss of roads and community buildings, and the trauma of experiencing the storm and lost lives. More than 230 people were killed due to the storm, making it the deadliest mainland hurricane to hit the United States in nearly two decades.

Just weeks later, on Oct. 9, Milton wreaked havoc on the West Coast of Florida when it made landfall in Siesta Key, just south of Tampa, as a Category 3 storm, further closing schools and disrupting kids' lives.

Just two days before Milton struck, Blakely had been scheduled to return to school at a temporary location. Instead, she and her mom remained in Orlando, where they evacuated before Helene destroyed their home.

"She misses our house ... she misses her playroom, and she misses her cozy bedroom. We talk about the birthday party we just had the weekend before we evacuated ... and all the family dinners that we had with our friends around our table," Spicer said. "We just focus on the good memories, and I just remind her we've made a home in every house we've been to."

More than 500 major disasters in 7 years

The devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton has put a stark spotlight on the lasting impact that natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires have on children, experts say.

As climate change worsens and more natural disasters strike the U.S., the impacts on kids are likely to grow in ways that we don't even currently know, according to Cassandra R. Davis, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose research focuses on students and disaster recovery.

Since 2017, there have been over 500 presidentially-declared major disasters in the U.S., according to the Department of Education.

In California alone, more than 230 school closures have taken place due to wildfires since August, according to a spokesperson for the state's Department of Education.

"When things get disrupted, the assumption that that doesn't impact educators, doesn't have an impact on students, is false," Davis said. "Absolutely more work should look into the long-term impacts of storms, specifically in these areas that are continually being hit."

Davis studied the effects on children of Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, which struck Haiti and North Carolina in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

Her research found that long after the media coverage is gone and daily life resumes, children weather the impact of the storms through everything from long-lasting trauma to academic struggles. After Matthew and Florence, some students fell behind academically for over one year, according to Davis.

"If we can say that climate change is responsible for these magnitudes, these frequencies of events, and that it's getting to the well-being and the wellness and the academics of our students, which is disrupting them [now] and [into] the future, will that spark others to have an intensive conversation about what climate change means as a whole? Because it's not just that an event hits like Milton, like Helene, and then a couple of weeks later there's the clean-up and then we're fine," Davis said. "This stuff lingers."

In Florida, more than 60 school districts across the state closed ahead of Helene, while around 50 closed ahead of Milton, according to Sydney Booker, communications director for the Florida Department of Education.

All school districts reopened less than one week after Helene made landfall, and the majority have also reopened already post-Milton, Booker said, noting that school districts in Florida account for hurricane days and make up instructional time as needed.

"In Florida, we firmly believe that the best place for a student after a disaster is to be at school, where they can access hot meals and air conditioning, return to their academic studies, and feel a sense of normalcy when many families might still be dealing with the impacts of a storm," Booker said in a statement.

In western North Carolina, where Helene caused massive destruction to roads and infrastructure, 11 school districts were closed for two weeks after the storm, and at least three districts remain closed "until further notice," according to Blair Rhodes, communications director for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

Heather Smith, North Carolina's 2024 teacher of the year, is a middle school teacher in Haywood County, where schools just reopened on Monday.

She said in the past five years, students in her district have been out of school intermittently due to the coronavirus pandemic, Hurricane Fred, a cyberattack on the school district and now Helene. In addition, last year, in 2023, a paper mill that was the livelihood of many students' parents shut down after more than a century in operation.

"To have Hurricane Helene hit again has really impacted our community," Smith said. "So not only is it [now] preparing our students to get back, but it's also, they've just experienced a catastrophic event, and for some of them, it's been multiple things in their life that have been catastrophic."

Smith said as an educator, she sees that anytime students stop and start school proves difficult for both learning and behaviors. She noted that hurricane season in particular falls at the start of the school year, just as students are adapting to their classrooms.

"It's really hard on students," Smith said. "I have young children, and if I take them out of a routine, it takes a while to get them back into that routine."

She continued, "It's so hard to establish this routine and then to bring in that mix of, you know, it's still hurricane season. Our kids are going to be in this state of, 'What if it happens again?' Or, 'I've completely lost everything.'"

A study published in the journal Society for Research in Child Development in 2020 found that as many as 50% of children report post-traumatic stress symptoms after experiencing a disaster, and that chronic mental health symptoms can be observed in kids for years after the event.

Smith said she feels confident that educators in areas of North Carolina impacted by Helene will be able to get students caught up academically, but she worries about the storm's emotional toll on students.

"I think the biggest thing is that emotional piece of them not having the security of school, not having the routine at school, the constant worry -- and I can't imagine the students that have experienced this twice," Smith said. "Our areas will never look the same ... We live in these beautiful, majestic mountains and have this wonderful scenery, and to see the nature physically changed has to be disheartening for them as well."

Smith noted that for some students, long after they return to the classroom, their home lives may never be the same.

"How difficult is it when kids are at school, when they may be thinking about how they can help their parents at home who lost everything?" she said. "How difficult must that be?"

'Recovery is only reserved for the privileged'

In Orlando, where Spicer and her daughter remain evacuated, the single mom said she is trying to continue to run her own business while also becoming her daughter's educator and primary support system until she is able to return to school.

Spicer said she is also trying to decide whether she can financially return to Tampa, an area that she and her daughter love, amid hurricanes that seem to be increasing in both frequency and strength.

"My brain's starting to go, 'Well, what is this going to do to cost of living? What is this going to do to auto insurance? ... The housing insurance is going to go up. What does that do to rental rates? Supply chain? Utilities? How is Tampa going to be impacted after this?'" Spicer said. "We have to take that into consideration, especially as a single mom and a business owner. I'm not a person of deep pockets."

She added, "I don't want to move. Tampa is home. But we have to be practical and realistic as well, so the future is very up in the air."

Davis said her research on children and natural disasters has shown that huge disparities exist when it comes to who is most impacted by storms, noting that schools and families in low-income communities often end up with less assistance to help.

"It's really why I argue that recovery is only reserved for the privileged," Davis said. "Because if you have the means, if you have the insurance, if you have if you have other family who has the means and is privileged, then your chances of recovering are much higher."

She continued, "If you don't, if you are one of the [many] Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck, the ability to recover after a disaster is slim to none."

For children, that may look like lagging attendance in school, falling behind academically and mental health struggles. Even when a child is in school, their lack of recovery at home may make them ill-prepared to learn, according to Davis.

As hurricanes and other natural disasters grow and spread beyond coastal areas, as seen with Helene, Davis said she hopes a spotlight is placed on disparities in recovery, especially among families.

"It is imperative, it is beyond vital that there's really a deconstruction of what a just recovery looks like," she said. "Because basically half of our residents, people who are living in this country -- and I would argue it's a bit more than that -- are not able to recover after a disaster. That's troubling and it's shocking."