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MENTAL HEALTH BARRIERS

LOCALLY GROWN

HURRICANE DAMAGE

A S H O C K A W A Y

COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER COMPANY • www.metrowestdailynews.com S U N D A Y , S E P T E M B E R 1 4 , 2 0 0 8 VOLUME 10 • NUMBER 326 •86 PAGES • 10 SECTIONS • $1.75

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HIGH SCHOOL Marian romps overKeefe Tech in footballaction. See storypage D1.

WEATHER/A7Cloudy with someshowers. Upper 70s.

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DAILY NUMBER A2

By Abby JordanDAILY NEWS STAFF

When Northborough Police Chief Mark Leahywas handed a check for $12,500 last spring, he wasstartled by the largest donation the department had

ever received.The chief and Sgt. Jim Bruce

knew exactly what to spend themoney on: eight automatic externaldefibrillators (AEDs) for seven policecruisers and the station.

‘‘I knew we were getting a check,but all I could think was, ‘Wow,we’ve never seen anything like

that,’ ’’ said Leahy. ‘‘This is a big deal for us.’’AEDs are cropping up in malls, schools and air-

ports, and have been required by the state to be in

SAVING LIVES ONE SHOCK AT A TIMEWith police officers sometimes being the first on the scene for aheart attack, more cruisers are being equipped with automaticemergency defibrillators (AED) which can provide an electric

shock to re-start a person's heart. How many AEDs do area departments have?

No. of No. ofTown officers AEDs

No. of No. ofTown officers AEDs

Framingham 113 30Marlborough 65 8Natick 48 16Hudson 39 1Southborough 16 7Northborough 20 8Westborough 25 1

Holliston 24 7Hopkinton 21 6Sudbury 29 5Wayland 22 4Ashland 27 3Milford 44 1Franklin 46 5

By Rob HaneisenDAILY NEWS STAFF

In 1985, musicians led a charge to save familyfarms as banks foreclosed on great swaths of theAmerican Midwest.

Twenty-three years later, small farmers are stillunder immense pressure but the public, as well asthe musician celebrities who push the annual

Farm Aid concert, may have formed a stronger alliancewith local growers thanks to the organic foods movement,price hikes and fears about food-borne illnesses.

On Sept. 20 in Mansfield, Farm Aid comes to the Com-cast Center and area farmers will be there to educate thepublic about the value of locally grown food and give thema taste of their hard work.

Among those on hand will be Jim Wilson and TonyCasieri from Wilson Farm in Lexington. Wilson Farm will

➤ Obstacles for goodemployment stillexist for some

Editor’s note: This is the thirdin a weekly series on challengesfacing the mentally ill.

By David RileyDAILY NEWS STAFF

Are they violent? Is the worktoo stressful? Will they cost apretty penny in lost productivity,disability checks and expensiveaccommodations?

Employers have askedRobert Charpentier all thesequestions when he calls to tryto connect a person with men-tal illness with a job.

Charpentier, employmentservices manager for Programs

for People Inc. in Framingham,says the fact is that for the vastmajority of people living with apsychiatric disorder, the an-swers are simple: No.

After more than 30 years inhis field, Charpentier said he hasseen disabled people in generalface fewer barriers and miscon-ceptions that once kept them outof the workplace. But some ob-stacles to meaningful employ-ment persist, especially for thosestruggling with mental health.

‘‘The problem with mental ill-ness is it’s a hidden disability,and it’s one that has stigma at-tached to it right from the start,’’Charpentier said.

The Americans with Disabili-ties Act and state law bar employ-ers from outright discriminating

LOCAL POLICE AREARMED TO SAVE YOU

DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY ALLAN JUNG

Northborough Police Sgt. Jim Bruce demonstrates the training his department received on one of its eight defibrillators.

But number of defibrillators in area departments varies

POLICE, Page A5

FARM AID, Page A8

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MULTIMEDIAON THE WEB

VIDEO

FARM AID COMES TO BAY STATE➤ Local farmers will supply all the food

at concessions for Sept. 20 concert

DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY MIKE SPRINGER

Chris Kurth, owner of Siena Farm in Sudbury, supplies vegetables to hiswife’s Cambridge restaurant, Oleana, and a dozen other area restaurants.

Workers with mentalillness fear stigma

WORKERS, Page A6

By Christopher Sherman and Pauline Arrillaga

ASSOCIATED PRESS

HOUSTON – Rescuers inboats, helicopters and high-water trucks set out across theflood-stricken Texas coast yes-terday in a monumental effort toreach tens of thousands of peo-ple who stubbornly ignoredwarnings of ‘‘certain death’’ andtried to ride out Hurricane Ike.

The storm roared ashorehours before daybreak with 110mph winds and toweringwaves, smashing houses, flood-ing thousands of homes, blow-

ing out windows in Houston’sskyscrapers, and cutting offpower to more than 3 millionpeople, perhaps for weeks.

By evening, it appeared thatIke was not the single calami-tous stroke that forecasters hadfeared. But the full extent of thedamage – or even a rough senseof how many people may haveperished – was still unclear, inpart because many roads wereimpassable.

Some authorities feared thatthis could instead become aslow-motion disaster, with

Search ison for Ikevictims

AP PHOTO BY LM OTERO

Joe Martinez wipes his brow while walking through the West Endsection of Galveston, Texas, flooded by hurricane Ike, yesterday.

Three million without power;thousands of homes damaged

IKE DAMAGE, Page A6

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WORKERS, From A1against anyone for a job because ofmental illness, but less straightfor-ward barriers still stand in the way.

That much is clear from sim-ple statistics: 90 percent of peo-ple in the U.S. with serious men-tal illnesses are unemployed,says a 2002 report by the presi-dent’s New Freedom Commis-sion on Mental Health.

Yet the same report foundmany of those people said theywanted to work, and could do sowith modest assistance. Thatnot only costs those people per-sonally, the report says – it coststhe economy.

Even among those who areemployed, facing a mental ill-ness is by no means rare. One infive Americans over age 18 suf-fers from a diagnosable mentaldisorder in a given year, accord-ing to the National Institute ofMental Health.

In a national study releasedlast year, the institute found of9,282 surveyed, more than halfsuffered a mental or physical

condition that prevented themfrom fulfilling their role at workfor several days a year. Depres-sion ranked as the second high-est cause on the list, just belowmusculoskeletal disorders likesevere neck and back pain. Psy-chiatric disorders also accountfor nearly half the top 10 causesof disability, says the NationalAlliance for the Mentally Ill.

Yet often, workers are afraidto reveal a mental illness to anemployer for fear of being stig-matized, Charpentier said.When these employees exhibitsome difficulty with depression,anxiety or other problems, evenif their symptoms can be man-aged, it can be hard for a boss tounderstand why, if he or shedoesn’t know about the under-lying problem, he said.

Even if a worker informs aboss of an illness, professionalssay that fear of stigma can bewell-placed when, say, the em-ployee needs a sick day.

‘‘I think there’s always in anemployer’s mind, who needs

the person there, some difficultyin understanding why the per-son suddenly can’t come towork,’’ said William J. Taylor,CEO of human services providerAdvocates Inc.

While it sometimes may beclear how to accommodate anemployee with a physical dis-ability, doing so for a workerwith a mental illness can be lessclear-cut, Taylor said.

Most accommodations are notcomplicated or expensive. Char-pentier recalls a cashier whoneeded short breaks to getwater and take medication.

‘‘Employers are afraid of ac-commodations, I think, becausethey could be too costly or theycould make exceptions to therule for other employees,’’Charpentier said.

And there are simple misper-ceptions about what mental ill-ness means. Charpentier saidemployers sometimes worrytheir work is too stressful for aperson with a psychiatric disor-der. Years ago, that was the

reason the CEO of a largeMetroWest company declinedto work with Project Advance,his jobs program.

‘‘Little did he know his per-sonal executive secretary hadbeen a client in our program,’’Charpentier said.

In another case, a local distri-bution center that has since leftthe area hired an efficiency ex-pert, who told the local manag-er there were complaints thatsome workers were not pullingtheir weight. He asked for a listof nine or so employees placedthere by Project Advance. Themanager asked instead for a listof the employees who supervi-sors complained about.

‘‘Not one of them was ourclient,’’ Charpentier said.

Four clients at Programs forPeople spoke with the DailyNews recently about their ownexperiences on the conditionthey not give their full names.Each had struggled with workbecause of mental illness.

Mark had managed a ware-

house and worked for years inthe food service field, but men-tal illness and alcoholism got inthe way.

‘‘I have had good careers, butit was the drinking,’’ he said.Going through Programs forPeople’s day treatment pro-gram, Mark was 19 monthssober when interviewed andsaid he hopes to get back towork. If he continues his treat-ment, he said, he’ll do fine.

‘‘Society today doesn’t want tohear that as an answer,’’ he said.

Melissa showed she couldhold down a job - she worked atthe same restaurant for 10years. When the symptoms ofdepression take hold, however,she has had difficulty keepingwork.

Bill said he has had support-ive bosses who knew about hisdepression and still valued himas a worker. But in another job,he said he believes word of hisillness got out to other employ-ees against his wishes.

‘‘It should have been kept

confidential, but it wasn’t,’’ Billsaid.

Charpentier believes therehas been incremental changethanks to public educationabout mental illness, and em-ployers who have demonstratedsuccess with workers who havepsychiatric disorders.

Through Project Advance atPrograms for People, Charpen-tier works with 50 to 60 clients ayear and helps place about halfin jobs. The program has strongrelationships with about sixlocal employers, and is about tolaunch an effort to increase thatnumber, he said.

Charpentier also heads theMetroWest Work OpportunitiesCoalition, which helps increaseacceptance of the mentally illand disabled in the workforce.But there is more work to do.

‘‘Compared to other disabilitygroups, we’re still behind,’’Charpentier said.

(David Riley can be reachedat 508-626-3919 or e-mail himat driley@cnc.com)

IKE DAMAGE, From A1thousands of victims trapped intheir homes, waiting for days tobe rescued.

‘‘We will be doing this proba-bly for the next week or more.We hope it doesn’t turn into arecovery,’’ said Sheriff’s Sgt.Dennis Marlow in Orange Coun-ty, where more than 300 peoplehad to be rescued from floodedhomes. He said that was only ‘‘adrop in the bucket’’ comparedwith the number still stranded.

By some estimates, more than140,000 of the 1 million or sopeople who had been ordered toevacuate the coast as Ike drewnear may have tried to tough itout. Many of them evidently re-alized the mistake too late, andpleaded with authorities in vainto save them overnight.

Ronnie Sharp, 65, and his ter-rier-mix Princess, had to be res-cued from his trailer in OrangeCounty when water reached hisknees. ‘‘I was getting too manysnakes in the house, otherwise Iwould have stayed,’’ Sharp said.He said he lost everything in theflood but his medicine and somecigarettes.

After the storm had passed,National Guardsmen, membersof the Coast Guard, FEMA rep-resentatives and state and locallaw enforcement authoritiesmobilized for what Gov. RickPerry pronounced ‘‘the largestsearch-and-rescue operation inthe history of the state ofTexas.’’

Some emergency officialswere angry and frustrated thatso many people ignored thewarnings.

‘‘When you stay behind in theface of a warning, not only doyou jeopardize yourself, you putthe first responders at risk aswell,’’ Homeland Security Sec-retary Michael Chertoff said.‘‘Now we’re going to see thisplay out.’’

Steve LeBlanc, Galveston’scity manager, said: ‘‘There wasa mandatory evacuation, andpeople didn’t leave, and that isvery frustrating because now

we are having to deal with ev-erybody who did not heed theorder. This is why we do it, andthey had enough time to getout.’’

Because Ike was so huge –some 500 miles across, makingit nearly as big as Texas itself –hurricane winds pounded thecoast for hours before and afterthe storm’s center came ashore.Ike soon weakened to a tropicalstorm as it made its way inland,but continued to pound the statewith 60 mph winds and rain.

Officials were encouraged tolearn that the storm surgetopped out at only 15 feet – farlower than the catastrophic 20-

to-25 foot wall of water fore-casters had feared.

Preliminary industry esti-mates put the damage at at least$8 billion.

Damage to the nation’sbiggest complex of refineriesand petrochemical plants ap-peared to be slight, but gasolineprices shot up for fear that thesupply would be interrupted bypower outages and the timenecessary to restart a refinery.In some parts of the country,gas prices surged briefly to $5 agallon.

As the day wore on, hundredsof people were rescued fromtheir flooded-out homes, in

many cases by emergencycrews that had to make theirway through high water andstreets blocked by peeled-awayroofs, wayward yachts and up-rooted trees.

But the day was already halfover before the winds dieddown enough for authorities tobegin the rescue, and the searchwas almost certain to be sus-pended before dark because ofthe dangers posed by downedpower lines and flooded roads.A portion of hard-hit Galvestonhad yet to be examined.

The storm, which killed morethan 80 in the Caribbean beforereaching the U.S., was blamedfor at least two lives in Texas. Awoman was killed in her sleepwhen a tree fell on her homenear Pinehurst. A 19-year-oldman slipped off a jetty near Cor-pus Christi and was apparentlywashed away. Louisiana offi-cials said a 16-year-old boydrowned yesterday after fallingout of a fishing boat in Ike-flood-ed Bayou Dularge.

Lisa Lee spent hours on theroof of her Bridge City homewith her husband, John, her 16-year-old brother, WilliamRobinson, and their two dogs.They dove into 8-foot floodwa-ters and swam to safety after asheriff’s deputy arrived in atruck and drove as close to theirhome as he could. Their dogs

paddled to safety behind them.‘‘It was like a dream,’’ said

William Robinson, while his sis-ter shivered in a blanket at ashelter set up at a Baptistchurch in Orange.

A convoy of search-and-res-cue teams from Texas and Cali-fornia drove into Galveston –where the storm came ashoreat 3:10 a.m. EDT – after bulldoz-ers cleared away mountains ofdebris. Interstate 45, the onlyroad onto the island, was lit-tered with large overturnedyachts, dead pelicans and twist-ed debris from homes anddocks.

Homes and other buildings inGalveston and homes burnedunattended during the height ofIke’s fury; 17 collapsed becausecrews couldn’t get to them todouse the flames. There was nowater or electricity on the is-land, and the main hospital, theUniversity of Texas MedicalBranch, flew critically ill pa-tients to other medical center.

Sedonia Owen, 75, and herson, Lindy McKissick, stayed toshoo off looters. She was armedwith a shotgun, watching flood-waters recede from her frontporch. ‘‘My neighbors told me,‘You’ve got my permission. Any-body who goes into my house,you can shoot them,’’’ Owensaid.

President Bush declared a

major disaster in his home stateof Texas and ordered immedi-ate federal aid.

In downtown Houston, shat-tered glass rained down on thestreets below the JPMorganChase Tower, the state’s tallestbuilding at 75 stories. Treeswere uprooted in the streets,road signs mangled by wind.

‘‘I think we’re like at groundzero,’’ said Mauricio Diaz, 36,as he walked along Texas Av-enue across the street from theChase building. Metal blindsfrom the tower dotted thestreet, along with red seat cush-ions, pieces of a wood desk andoffice documents marked‘‘highly confidential.’’

Southwest Louisiana wasspared a direct hit, but Ike’ssurge of water penetrated some30 miles inland, flooding thou-sands of homes, breaching lev-ees and soaking areas still re-covering from Labor Day’sHurricane Gustav. Officials saidthe flooding was worse than itwas during 2005’s HurricaneRita, which hit the Louisiana-Texas line.

But there was good news: Astranded freighter with 22 menaboard made it through thestorm safely, and a tugboat wason the way to save them. And anevacuee from Calhoun Countygave birth to a girl in the re-stroom of a shelter with the aidof an expert in geriatric psychia-try who delivered his first babyin two decades.

In Surfside Beach, retired car-penter and former Marine RayWilkinson became something ofa celebrity for a day: He was thelone resident in the town of 805to defy the order to leave. Au-thorities found him yesterdaymorning, drunk.

‘‘I consider myself to bestupid,’’ Wilkinson, 67, saidthrough a thick, tobacco-stained beard. ‘‘I’m just tired ofrunning from these things. If it’sgoing to get you, it’s going to getyou.’’

He added: ‘‘I didn’t say I hadall my marbles, OK?’’

FROM THE FRONT PAGE

As many as 140,000 ignored evacuation orders

Employers not always clear on how to accommodate workers

AP PHOTO BY FRANK FRANKLIN II

Debris is seen scattered across Highway 146 on a bridge leadingfrom Kemah to Seabrook yesterday in Kemah, Texas.

AP PHOTO/AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, JAY JANNER

Galveston resident Abraham Cox looks at the destruction on Seawall Boulevard in Galveston after Hurricane Ike passed through.