Kitsap's growing population alone can't explain the increase, Sandstrom said. No single factor can be singled out for driving more people to suicide last year. It's a straw that broke the camel's back situation. More of the victims than usual seemed to be middle-aged men this year, Sandstrom said. But that still doesn't point to a common cause.
Some people say it's the weather, some people say it's the military.
In other years, Kitsap's suicide rate has averaged about 17 per 100,000 people, as compared to a national rate of about 12 per 100,000. This year, Kitsap's rate was closer to 20 suicides per 100,000 people, Sandstrom said. The Crisis Clinic didn't see a corresponding jump in suicide-related calls in 1999, Jacobs said. Volunteers had taken 371 suicide-related calls as of Thursday afternoon, she said. Though 1998 statistics were imprisoned in a computer system that was shut down for the Y2K weekend, the number of suicide-related calls last year was about the same, Jacobs said.