Surrounded by mold, Saint Paul Missionary Baptist Pastor Haywood Johnson, leaves the church after rescuing sermon robes nearly a month after Hurricane Ida's wind and storm surge devastated the historic African American community in Plaquemines Parish. After about six months in his Irish Channel apartment, Allen Clayton started having coughing episodes. He didn’t have a history of asthma and he wasn’t around common triggers like smoke.
He was a healthy 33-year-old who got exercise regularly as a pedicab driver. But suddenly, he was coughing until he passed out. He visited the emergency room several times, where they gave him breathing treatments and sent him on his way.
“I thought I was dying,” Clayton said. It wasn’t until an ear, nose and throat doctor sent a scope down his nose that the problem became clear. “He just immediately said, ‘You got a lot of mold in your house, don't you?,’” Clayton recalled.
“He says, ‘You need to move out, like, today.’” With an abundance of rain, regular flooding and a humid climate, Louisiana buildings are uniquely positioned to cultivate a moldy environment. That translates to health effects for many residents who become sensitized to mold over time.
“We see it all the time,” said Dr. John Carlson, allergy and immunology specialist at Ochsner Health. About half of the patients Carlson sees for allergies end up testing positive for a mold allergy that can translate to typical symptoms like coughing, watery eyes and wheezing.
But it can also trigger asthma, leading to debilitating symptoms and a poor quality of life. There is a baseline of mold in all environments. But the process of becoming allergic to mold is thought to be related to strong exposures like Clayton’s.
Later, peering into a collapsed wall of his apartment, he saw mold growing so thick it looked like moss. Those kinds of exposures related to flooding or one-time water events are often the trigger for a new mold allergy. “We strongly suspect that it's these really powerful exposures that kind of derail the allergic immune system and get it absolutely geared up looking for even small amounts to react to,” Carlson said.
After a strong mold exposure, the body becomes highly sensitized to even small amounts of mold in the environment. The immune system sees it as a threat. “This is your immune system that's catapulted into a really problematic state,” said Carlson.
After flooding, immune systems in Louisiana start to rev up. “Every massive storm that comes through exposing a lot of people to mold, we will see a spike in adult onset asthma coming into our clinic,” Carlson said. Patients who later test positive for a mold allergy sometimes panic, scrubbing the surfaces of their home with chemicals in an attempt to rid it of mold.
While people should take care of moldy conditions quickly after a flood, it’s impossible to remove all mold from the environment. Allergists see injuries from bleach when patients have tried to sterilize their homes. Instead, specialists recommend treatment that involves exposing the body to small amounts of mold over the year through allergy shots.
The shots are specially formulated to the exact mold spores patients are testing positive for. “Ultimately, it's more about controlling your immune system than it is about controlling your environment,” Carlson said. After water enters a home, it’s important to act quickly, said Daniel J.
Harrington, certified industrial hygienist and assistant professor at LSU's School of Public Health. “You've got about 24 to 48 hours to get everything dried out completely before mold growth really kicks into high gear,” Harrington said. If mold does take hold, a lot of people want to get tests to see what kind of mold it is, but Harrington doesn’t typically recommend that.
They’re expensive and don’t offer much actionable data. Instead, visible mold should be seen as a “moisture control problem,” he said. Cleaning it up with things like bleach will help, but mold will keep coming back unless the moisture is addressed.
As long as mold has moisture, it can turn most surfaces into food, including wood, drywall and carpet. The typical molds that show up in homes are Penicillium, Cladosporium, Alternaria and Aspergillus. Alternaria is the most common mold in New Orleans patients, Carlson said.
The so-called “black mold,” Stachybotrys, is unlikely to take up residence in homes. Harrington recommended using wet wipes instead of a vacuum to clean up mold that has been festering for a while. A vacuum spreads spores around, allowing them to take root elsewhere and sending them up the respiratory tract.
To prevent mold from growing in the future, run the air conditioner and use an exhaust fan in the bathroom. Sometimes moldy carpets or drywall need to be ripped out and replaced. Leaks should be fixed.
Clayton said his doctor wrote a note to his building’s property management company that he needed to get out immediately. They never responded, but he soon moved. His doctor told him it would take between three and five years for his immune system to recalibrate.
Four years later, he’s having far fewer asthma attacks. But the mold exposure derailed him for a while. “I'm sure there are thousands of people in New Orleans exactly like me who just have no clue they might be exposed to a really pernicious mold,” Clayton said.
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