For my closest friends who may be wondering..
Like these grown men, I, too, have been.. choked up the last few days:
Dave Game is quoted as saying, There is no way to tame nature's fury.
That one unbelievably conscious Reality is as much a hard part now as the continual loss since it brings with it the ever-present knowledge that any second, absolutely any blamed second again now, it could happen all over again.. And the thing is that I, for one, just plum do not have the energy it takes to make something to feed the Soul, let alone defend Life, limb, and property against another Andrew..
Comes as much as anything from having fallen through the cracks back then.. There were some well-meaning folks, but, by and large, it was so overwhelming for all of us at the time, survivors and rescuers alike, that falling through just.....
Just happened.. multiple times along the way..
Post-traumatic stress disorder..
PTSD..
With Hurricane Katrina so much more recently in Memory, please learn about it, what it is, what it looks like..
Compassionately understand it..
As you read about it, think hard on CBS' remembrance piece and visualize the grown men depicted as misting up this near two decades later since H. Andrew..
Now, think of the 500,000 give or take that Hurricane Katrina affected and put them in those same Shoes.. For them, the disaster they bore was just that much worse than what the guys at CBS are reacting to in near tears.. I know.. I was there.. And because I was there, when I heard over and over and over what happened during Katrina, I knew it was umpteen times that much worse..
Have lost track now, but back when we did The World Bank Group's Disabled and other Vulnerable People in Natural Disasters three week deal, a grand total of some $600,000 had been earmarked for the mental health care of the survivors.. Haven't much heard of anything along those lines since..
$1.20 a survivor..
Earlier today, hm, yesterday, was reading something from the Los Angeles Times entitled Denver protester focuses on Hurricane Katrina.. In it, they write about survivor Derrick Evans who is said to have hauled an old FEMA trailer from Gulfport, Mississippi, to the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado.. The impression he wished to make..?
Where did $129 billion for Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery go?
Can someone somewhere please help him find out..? Venturing to make a wholly uneducated guess that he has many, many, many a day it's all he and/or those around him can do to simply just get up..
All it takes is just one person, even if it's just one stranger, who gives a damn and has some serious fact checking tools to go with.. That's all it would take to help him help pro-actively change the Lives of hundreds of thousands forever..
But don't take it away from him.. Please stand there beside him, instead..
Cyber hugs from Talking Rock..
1 comment:
I am a Hurricane Andrew survivor and suffered from PTSD.
The goverment did very little if nothing at all to help those who suffered from PTSD. Paradise was ripped part on August 23,1992 and we were roped off from the rest of the world as we waited for the cameras to get in place so they could film the calvary and make us feel good about our tax dollars,FEMA rushed as fast they could to get to start the process of labeling,marking,and quantfying the dead and debris never bringing supplies,water,ice,food, instead they brought cell phones??They had an attitude like they were doing us all a favor.When they finally came I did not need theirs or anyone elses' help at all.I did see one goverment psyhcologist but he was an idiot and I never received a followup or nothing, it was like I did not live at all.
Lesson learned, do not depend on the goverment to help in times of crisis depend on yourself,family,friends, and neighbors.If you did not go thru those winds of oblivion then you have no idea of what a humbling experience is and the respect you have for and earned by mother nature as she is the true master and we are all at her beckoned call.
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