Neu Annette

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall just east of New Orleans, LA at 6:10AM CST and again at the LA/MS border at 10:00AM CST as a Category 3 hurricane, causing mass destruction along their coastlines. The devastation in LA and MS forced many residents to evacuate. Outside of the hurricane affected areas of LA, MS, and AL, GA received the second largest number of evacuees (approximately 125,000).

Objective

To describe the victims of Hurricane Katrina who evacuated to GA and to assess their impact on emergency departments enrolled in GA’s syndromic surveillance system.

Although many syndromic surveillance (SS) systems have been developed and implemented, few have included response protocols to guide local health jurisdictions when alerts occur [1,2]. SS was first implemented in GA during the 2004 G-8 Summit. Six EDs in the Coastal Public Health District (PHD), 1 of 18 GA PHDs (Figure 1), conducted SS during that “national security special event.” Since that time, EDs in other PHDs have been actively recruited to participate in GA’s SS system. In GA, the PHD has the responsibility for monitoring SS data. Likewise, the PHD responds to alerts and initiates public health investigations and interventions; the state Division of Public Health (DPH) assists, if requested. To address these responsibilities, the Coastal PHD informally developed their own response practices.

Objective

To develop a template protocol to guide local response to syndromic surveillance alerts generated through analyses of emergency department (ED) visit data.