Six. Almost Seven..: hurricane andrew

For my closest friends who may be wondering..

Like these grown men, I, too, have been.. choked up the last few days:

Hurricane Andrew: 16 Years Ago Today..

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..

Dear President Bush..

Most respectfully...........

Back in the immediate days following Hurricane Katrina, I sent you a very personal, very desperate plea that, even as physical debris cleanup visibly progressed after what could be seen and felt as our nation's most horrible of natural disasters, proactive, conscious, humane, accountable mental health care addressing the aftershock, the post traumatic stress of surviving just such a disaster was paramount.. After an extended deliberation, after some very serious soul searching regarding the possible fallout of the same, as part of that original correspondence, I additionally alluded indirectly, if not near directly, specifically to depression.. to suicide as a very real consequence of the natural disaster at hand at the time..

Within a day or so of that original email to you all, I did see where there was approximately $600,000 in Hurricane Katrina "Emergency Response Grants" publicly earmarked by HHS' SAMHSA for Katrina-related mental health care for the 500,000 Hurricane Katrina survivors.. (Basic math, anyone..?) Admittedly, I am and remain back into survival mode in my own Life and thus "out of the loop" so I do not know what, if anything else was similarly ever earmarked for Hurricane Katrina mental health care specifically..

Silently at that time and even with the desperation through which I typed just hoping to actually be heard, I very consciously realized that I would most likely be viewed as Chickenette Little from Talking Rock for typing to you as one person wearing a particular pair of Shoes since that Monday in August of 1992.. Had no doubt that it would be seen that one person does not a trend make to be considered seriously, but just had to take that chance of opening up to you all at that time..

Prompting this very public plea to you now is that the 15th anniversary of the day Hurricane Andrew ripped through Homestead, Florida, is too rapidly coming down on us again.. And so come back the thoughts of those events just as fresh and green as though they occurred last week..

And, now, just a few moments ago, I found CivilRights.org's Buzz newsletter featuring a USA Today article on the continued escalating of mental health circumstances directly involving survivors of Hurricane Katrina, up to and, yes, including increased tendencies towards suicidal thoughts..

Guess I'm missing something here because a "big surprise" attributed to those overseeing the reported Harvard Medical School Hurricane Katrina study was:

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which typically goes away in a year for most disaster survivors, has increased: 21% have the symptoms vs. 16% in 2006. Common symptoms include the inability to stop thinking about the hurricane, nightmares and emotional numbness.

Because it's taken this fifteen years since Hurricane Andrew, and thus obviously plus, from these Shoes to recover the PTSD effects, my big surprise then becomes that their big surprise even occurred..

Please, to you, President Bush, and to everyone else who can do something about this, I stand strongly by my prediction of a couple of years ago that our nation's communities overall are will be affected if we do not proactively bottom line first and foremost address our nation's mental health care system quality while simultaneously addressing mental health, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) most specifically, with respect to disasters, both by nature and by man..

The disaster that remains of my own Life stands before you most humbly as an example.. Just One.. And Mine pales in comparison to what the Mind can only begin to imagine is Life after Hurricane Katrina for those who did survive all that was that particular disaster.. That's potentially just.. 500,000..

This Party of One once again implores of those with the Keys to Change that, IF our nation does not address the inadequacies of its entire mental health care system and more specifically address post-traumatic stress disorder with respect to disaster, both by nature and man (e.g. the Mississippi River bridge collapse), our nation is in a great big heap of doo for many years to come as there is and will continue to be an increasing rippling effect throughout our entire communities..

Nope, not a clue how we can, like, yesterday turn around the manmade disaster that is our nation's mental health care system such that it actually begins to care about those who walk through its doors.. instead of its bottom line, the almighty greenback.. At this precise moment, I myself am literally continuing to just try to survive.. Do know that beginning by closing one's eyes to one's own sterotypes and preconceptions of folks and instead actually listening to AND hearing those seeking care and assistance is a new beginning.. No time better than the Present to start..

Warning :: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode spoiler ahead..

In closing, saw a great CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Las Vegas episode a couple of nights ago, one entitled Unfriendly Skies that is more than apropos here.. It was the one where a traveler who turned out to have encephalitis that was triggered by an airplane trip was murdered by some five or six of his fellow passengers because his societal overlooked, unacknowledged disability-related actions triggered by the plane, altitude, et al(l) endangered those same passengers..

The last few minutes of the episode concluded with each of the main characters reflecting from the Heart as to why they (likely) would or would not have participated in the mob mentality that ended with the one passenger's death.. Can't recall the exact quote now, but William Petersen's CSI character, Gil Grissom, said something along the lines of, "It took [five] people to kill the passenger. All it would have taken was just one person to have listened to, to have followed through effectively for that man to still be here, for that man to still be alive today.."

Indubitably..

That's what I've been trying desperately to say for as long as these fingertips realized they, too, have a Voice that Counts..

Peace and best wishes..

Cindy Sue from Talking Rock..

Reference - USA Today :: Katrina Victims Struggle Mentally; Marilyn Elias; Thursday, August 16, 2007..