Teams of counselors and mental health workers greeted hundreds of evacuees at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in the last 24 hours.
Most of the evacuees quickly moved on to connecting flights or called friends and family locally for a ride, though some stopped to talk about their flight from the conflict in Lebanon.
“At least on this flight, people were in pretty good shape. Some people had issues. They?re leaving loved ones behind,” said Linnea Anderson, spokeswoman for the Red Cross of Central Maryland.
Other Red Cross volunteers provided boxed lunches and “comfort kits” for adults and children arriving Thursday morning and again at midnight.
“Evacuation from a combat zone can obviously be very stressful, not only for the evacuees, but for their family. Dealing with stress and anxiety becomes a real issue for some people,” Anderson said.
Maryland?s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and Human Resources and the Anne Arundel County Mental Health Agency have also sent trained mental health workers to the airport to welcome refugees and offer a sympathetic ear.
“We?ll be there, staffed and ready to give them not only counseling services but any” physical health treatment they may need, county spokeswoman Rhonda Wardlaw said.
The state had five teams of two or three mental health specialists meeting the planes, said Elyn Jones, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Human Resources.
Three more flights were expected through the night, said Ed McDonough, spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency. “We expect more over the weekend, but we don?t know when they are coming.”
The work done by counseling and welcome teams overnight would be more critical, he said, because those living out of the area would not be able to make connecting flights.
