Word: stress
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...countless mock drills, Californians have long been convinced they were psychologically ready for a big quake. Last week that comforting belief was demolished. "I'm scared," confesses Sarah Ford, 43, who with her three-year-old daughter found temporary shelter at an Oakland high school. "I need a stress pill. When I walk, I'm like tipping. I'm looking to see if anything moves...
...disasters. Just like soldiers in combat and civilians in assaults, survivors of quakes -- as well as of floods, fires, plane crashes, even oil spills -- experience psychic upheavals so intense that their lives are shaken for years. In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association formally labeled such debilitating effects "post-traumatic stress disorder...
Some experts believe that Bay Area residents may be peculiarly vulnerable to the syndrome, precisely because they have been anticipating a cataclysm for years. "Chronic stress is very harmful," notes Dr. James Shore of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, who surveyed victims of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. "Preparedness can make people more susceptible...
...sooner help comes, the better. A study of 200 traumatic-stress cases by researchers at the Barrington Psychiatric Center in Los Angeles revealed that the costs of rehabilitation, disability, absence from work and litigation were six times as high for victims who received no or delayed therapy as for those who were treated quickly. That suggests that California health officials should offer as much counseling as possible now -- or face even more serious distress in the future...
...divides the Pacific plate and the North American plate, which grind past each other at the pace of 2 in. a year. But this movement of the plates is not uniform. Along fault zones the plates tend to become "locked," resisting the overall motion. Explains Berkeley seismologist Robert Uhrhammer: "Stress builds up in these areas that are in effect welded shut. It's as if the rock were being stretched like a big rubber sheet." At a certain point the rock snaps, allowing the plates to slip and release stress. The result is an earthquake...