Gulf oil spill spews anxiety and despair

By Casandra Andrews, Press-Register
Published: Sunday, June 27, 2010, 5:32 AM In March, officers with the Bayou La Batre Police Department responded to 470 calls, according to their records. Two months later — after a ruptured well began gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, imperiling the fishing industry in five states and idling thousands of workers — the police calls in the Bayou jumped to 800. “That is an empirical indicator that the community is extremely disrupted,” said Steven Picou, a sociology professor at the University of South Alabama, who has studied the impacts of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska for more than 20 years. Even worse, Picou said, the people of the Gulf may be “fast-tracking the social and psychological aspects because of the incredible size of this catastrophe. The trust factor is gone in regards to BP and the Coast Guard. “This is your worst nightmare,” Picou said. “It’s like an amoebae out there. It comes and it goes. It’s underwater. It’s a monster.” After the Exxon Valdez spill, the rates of suicide, domestic violence and divorce surged in the areas most affected by the contamination of Prince Edward Sound. Picou and others wonder if the same is ahead for Gulf communities where, for generations, families have made a living from local waters. Last week, a charter fishing captain in Baldwin County, William Allen “Rookie” Kruse, took his life on his boat. So far, only a few new patients have come to the AltaPointe mental health clinic in Bayou La Batre seeking help because of the spill, according to Dr. Sandra Parker, the medical director and a psychiatrist. She figures that it’s just a matter of time. “People are still in shock and denial, and it takes a little while for things to sink in,” Parker said. “One of the big problems in this situation is fear of the unknown. Folks who earn their living in the Bayou, they don’t know when this will ever end.” Bayou Police Sgt. Jason Edwards said crime is up across the board in the area that comprises the heart of south Mobile County’s staggered seafood industry. Spencer Collier, a state lawmaker who lives in Bayou La Batre, said he has concern that stress disorders will beset the area for years to come. “I’ve had half a dozen people come to me in the last three days. They can’t pay the power bill,” Collier said last week. “I’ve seen fear in their eyes.” …