Suicide Rate In New Orleans Nearly Triples

[MrsSpringsteen]

The suffering continues

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/index.html

"In the weeks and months since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, many people in the area have told us about their feelings of depression. And we've heard reports of people killing themselves because they couldn't cope with their changed lives.

The stories have been plentiful, but the tales of increased depression have basically all been anecdotal. But now some numbers have been thrown our way.

According to the coroner's office in New Orleans, the city's suicide rate nearly tripled in the months after Katrina. A suicide rate of nine per 100,000 residents jumped to almost 27 per 100,000 residents.

We spent time recently with a very charming, lifelong New Orleans resident named Gina Barbe.

Gina worked in the tourist industry before Katrina, helping to arrange vacation stays for people visiting New Orleans. She told me her life before Katrina was happy; that she was always laughing. But things changed after August 29.

Gina says after the devastation of the hurricane, she lost her job and her medical coverage. Some of her friends died in the hurricane; others committed suicide.

She says the city became dark and dangerous to her. She told me she has frequently thought about killing herself, and that for days at a time, she has not felt like getting out of bed. She thinks she's been profoundly depressed.

The New Orleans police department operates a "crisis unit" that helps people who need to be protected from harming themselves. Sgt. Ben Glaudi, the man who started the unit 24 years ago, says there has been a dramatic increase in the rate of people who need to be helped.

Sgt. Glaudi says Gina's story is unfortunately fairly typical. In fact, he says he himself has been depressed. His house was destroyed in the hurricane, and he and his family now live in a trailer.

Gina has yet to get professional help for her depression. But she says she will. She knows her life may depend on it."

 

[Angela Harlem]

Awful.

I'v been meaning to go looking for items on how the rebuilding is going - both practically and so on. As in are people moving back there/rebuilding? Are business re-opened yet?

 

[Numb1075]

sad how you don't see any news on New Orleans anymore. Even on slow news days, news stations load up on crappy/silly news events when they should be focused on informing us of the progress or lack there of.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Yes indeed. Anderson Cooper is the only one still covering it in any depth, CNN just opened a bureau there.

It all still seems very bleak there to me

 

[verte76]

What a shame. That's really depressing. I was in the area affected by Hurricane Katrina, but fortunately I was in the peripheral area and only lost my power for five days.

 

[Numb1075]

CNN is smart. There are still many untold stories and there will be many more stories to come (unfortunately)

 

[AEON]

It is so difficult for people to find meaning in their lives once everything they were "attached" to, everything that gave their life purpose and meaning, is gone.

It is beyond sad. Katrina has done more than devastated New Orleans; for many survivors it has devastated their hope - which infinitely far more tragic.

 

[Liesje]

Awful.

I'v been meaning to go looking for items on how the rebuilding is going - both practically and so on. As in are people moving back there/rebuilding? Are business re-opened yet?

My uncle worked in New Orleans just a few months back. He was doing security for a medical center. I asked him how it was, the city in general, and he said good and bad. The good is that much of the city was not affected and is going on pretty much like normal. The coverage we see on TV is typically the very worst case scenarios (not that it makes it any less disturbing). The bad is that the parts that were affected are basically total losses, what with the water damage and now mold.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

by Senator Russ Feingold

After Banda Aceh in Indonesia was devastated by a horrific tsunami in 2004, the people there faced the challenge of rebuilding and restarting their lives. That is the same challenge that people on the Gulf Coast are facing today. I visited Banda Aceh earlier this year on a trip to Indonesia, and earlier this week I visited some of the neighborhoods ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

I was struck by what the people in Banda Aceh and New Orleans had in common, both because of what they went through, and because of the incredible resilience they have shown in the wake of those tragedies. But I was just as struck by how those places differed - especially how, in many ways, New Orleans seemed worse off than Banda Aceh did a year after the disaster.

When I visited Banda Aceh in February 2006 - a little over a year after the original tsunami hit - though many of the reconstruction programs had yet to be completed, there was visible progress being made, thanks in large part to the generosity of the American taxpayer. I saw homes, roads, buildings, and bridges being built with funds that the American government generously gave to the victims of the tsunami.

What I saw in New Orleans, New Orleans East, the 9th Ward, St. Bernard Parish, and Lakeview, was that in many ways, despite people's tremendous efforts, there has been less progress in those areas than there was in Banda Aceh a year after the tsunami. It is something I will never forget. Imagine driving through your hometown only to find, to this day, deserted streets, destroyed homes, and virtually no sign of reconstruction. While the shells of some homes still stand, they are completely unlivable inside, due to weeks of toxic liquid filth soaking into the structures of every room. Next to some of these homes are concrete slabs where a house used to be, while others have trailers parked in the front yard where a family is living because the house's roof has completely collapsed. There was a house that had the back of it completely ripped off, the front was totally dilapidated and someone had put a sign on the house saying that the insurance company had only paid a little over $10,000 to fix the structure. You could see an orange line around the outside of some houses which showed where the water was standing for some time outside the house. Who knows how high the water got inside the house. This went on for blocks and blocks and blocks of several different areas I toured.

While much work has already been done, and people in the region are working very hard, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenges that remain. That made me all the more impressed with the commitment shown by the clean-up crews, constructions workers, emergency personnel, and by all those who have moved back.

The people of the Gulf Coast, who lost so much to Katrina and Rita, have been putting their hearts into rebuilding. People there aren't faced with just rebuilding homes and businesses and roads. They are also faced with rebuilding lives and communities and a society...and doing so in a way that incorporates the region's most vulnerable populations and establishes the foundation for a society to thrive.

I strongly support the aid we have given to those in Banda Aceh and others who were the victims of the tsunami in 2004, and no one disputes that we have responsibility to help them rebuild. But we also have a special duty to the people of the Gulf Coast who still need us. Almost a year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, after more than 1,500 people were killed and countless lives were disrupted, our fellow Americans do still need us, and we still need to stand by them as they rebuild their lives.