"In many ways, this is the major environmental health disaster of our lifetime," said Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"It's a very complicated set of risk factors people face," he said. "This is a huge set of environmental health challenges."

Mountains of destroyed homes and building are being burned, releasing harmful chemicals that trigger congestion and coughs in the short term and can lead to cancer after prolonged exposure. Stagnant floodwaters left behind creeping mould while those lucky enough to have been resettled into new trailers are complaining of fumes from the glue and plywood.

People are falling off roofs and cutting themselves with chainsaws as they struggle to clean up in the storm's wake.

But the greatest threat may be from the stress of living in a miles-wide swath of destruction, Franklin said.

"Stress isn't a strong enough word. I'd call it anguish," he explained. "The level of grief and anguish there is palpable."

Across Mississippi and Louisiana, people are reporting trouble sleeping, bizarre outbursts, memory losses, rapid mood swings, substance abuse, marital problems, grief and shock.

"When you drive around Biloxi and see all those houses that have been very badly damaged and see people living in the rubble for weeks and weeks, it's easy to understand how traumatizing this has been for these families," said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Between 7 and 12 percent of people directly affected by disasters generally suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Since hundreds of thousands of people were caught in Katrina's fury, the mental toll is undoubtedly huge, he said.

"Because the sheer size of the impact was so large, I think there is a greater sense of despair and loss that people are experiencing," said Redlener, who has spent time in New Orleans and Mississippi. "This experience of dramatic, prolonged displacement will create a toll long into the future."

For some, like Alicia Heatherton of Biloxi, the aftermath has been worse than the storm. Her beachfront apartment survived the raging winds and waves, but her 68-year-old emphysemic lungs can't handle the mold.

She's moving to Nevada in about a week.

"I love it (in Biloxi), but my life comes first," Heatherton said, gasping for air. "I'm not going to sit here and mold to death."

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