Update from Hurricane country

My son is in Americorp helping cleanup in Creole, La.
I'm trying to share some of his updates-
He Writes:

Today we removed debris in a large field for a man named Cedric
who has been a cajun musician his whole life. He has
played with and befriended many great musicians,
including Willie Nelson and Hank Williams Jr. His
house was destroyed, and his trailer with $27,000
worth of musical equipment was washed away to a nearby
field by the storm surge. He was very depressed. We
connected right away though, when I told him I was also
a musician. He gave me his last copy of an album he
cut with his band, MOE D, in 2000. He played accordian
in the band and wrote most of the songs.

He told me that no one died from Rita, but since the hurricane 47
people have died from stress or suicide. A few of his
buddies have "blown their brains out". I worked all
through my lunch break by his side. Afterwards, we
were invited to our sponsors house for a barbeque,
where Cedric and a couple of his buddies from
Wisconsin played us some traditional cajun music. Two
guitars, a fiddle, Cedric on the acordian, and a fat
old lady with peach colored hair playing a triangle.
Their stage was a small porch outside one of the
trailors lined up beside the houses we had worked on
today. It was awesome.
After they finished I
went up and played a few originals on the guitar and
Cedric got really into it and came back up to play
some more songs. His first song was all about
marijuana, obviously inspired by me. We kept trading
off the guitar and exchanged song for song. He invited
me and the rest of NCCC to a small jam session with
him and his friends, Hank and Willie, next week. Hank
and Willie are apparently throwing a benifit concert
to raise enough money for him to buy back his
equipment and get into music again. It was fucking
sweet. He wants me to play next week for everybody
again. That was my day, hope your doing great.

How it is a very abnormally high number - whether from stress or depression or whatever, people are dying. It wasn't just people living in the disaster area. It included people who were evacuated to other cities also.

So, so sad. :(

for helping those poor souls. It will be an experience he will never forget, and he'll probably derive more satisfaction from it than those he helps. Bless his heart.