Gulf oil spill spews anxiety and despair

[Forkboy]

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."

http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2010/06/gulf-oil-spill-spews-anxiety-and.html

[enough]

1. What a powerful demonstration of the deep bond between human beings and their

their environment.