Dealing With Disaster - The Emotional & Practical Issues

[jay_merrill]

In this community of friends, we have once again seen an American tragedy. The toll in human lives is not yet known, but it appears that it will be relatively low. That is something to take comfort in, but the financial and emotional impact of Ike will be severe. This will be true in regard to areas from the primary impact area in Texas, to SE Louisiana, where significant flooding occurred.

I've started this thread because I feel like I learned a lot about such a situation from going through Hurricane Katrina. I saw, felt and had to deal with the impact of that particular storm personally, and watched my friends do the same. I was really quite lucky in that I had a home to return to, and lost few of my personal possessions. Still, the impact of such an event is strong - stronger than most things that are likely to happen in a person's life.

I hope by offering up my thoughts, feelings and experiences, I can provide comfort and a sense of hope to those now dealing with the aftermath of Ike. If there is one thing I learned from Katrina, it is that personal bonds create internal strength in people. Most people can't deal with this sort of thing alone - it is the words, touch, advice, and plain old affection of our friends, that gets us through it all.

If this thread seems to be something that others here find of value, I will continue to contribute to it. I really hope that others who have survived hurricanes, wildfires, and other such disasters, will contribute too. Each situation is different, and individual reactions to such situations vary. The commonality, however, is the need and ability of people to develop coping mechanisms - we all do what we need to do to "get through it." To whatever degree shared experience and support, can offer help to those dealing with this in developing their own coping mechanisms, I will consider the thread to be a good thing.

I have had close ties to music for a good bit of my life, so I'll start by offering some words to think about, and music to do that by. There is a Peter Gabriel song that I have always liked. It is really more about someone who feels that he or she has failed in some way, but there is an element in it that speaks of overcoming personal tragedy. The link that I have provided with the lyrics to the song, is of a performance of the song by Peter Gabriel and Paula Cole, during the "Secret World" tour in 1993. The lyrics and performance are done in a "statement/answer" format, with Peter speaking of his fears and perceived failures, while Paula Cole sings a response of support as a friend.


Don't Give Up - Written by Peter Gabriel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2SXNCkpIDY&feature=related

In this proud land we grew up strong
We were wanted all along
I was taught to fight, taught to win
I never thought I could fail

No fight left or so it seems
I am a man whose dreams have all deserted
Ive changed my face, Ive changed my name
But no one wants you when you lose

Dont give up
cos you have friends
Dont give up
Youre not beaten yet
Dont give up
I know you can make it good

Though I saw it all around
Never thought I could be affected
Thought that we'd be the last to go
It is so strange the way things turn

Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground

Dont give up
You still have us
Dont give up
We dont need much of anything
Dont give up
cause somewhere theres a place
Where we belong

Rest your head
You worry too much
Its going to be alright
When times get rough
You can fall back on us
Dont give up
Please dont give up

got to walk out of here
I cant take anymore
Going to stand on that bridge
Keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come
And whatever may go
That rivers flowing
That rivers flowing

Moved on to another town
Tried hard to settle down
For every job, so many men
So many men no-one needs

Dont give up
cause you have friends
Dont give up
Youre not the only one
Dont give up
No reason to be ashamed
Dont give up
You still have us
Dont give up now
Were proud of who you are
Dont give up
You know its never been easy
Dont give up
cause I believe theres the a place
Theres a place where we belong

 

[LadyFish]

Re: Dealing With Disaster - The Emotional & Practical Issues

Thank you Jay.

 

[JB]

Re: Dealing With Disaster - The Emotional & Practical Issues

Though I have suffered disasters with similar financial consequences, I have not suffered any so traumatic as has our dear friend, LadyFish.

The disasters I have suffered each invariably made me stronger emotionally. I went, over time, from "Oh, woe is me. " to "This will not defeat me.".

I have every confidence that LF and her great spouse will survive, prevail and emerge stronger than ever.

In the meantime she knows that any assistance within my power is at her beck and call.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Dealing With Disaster - The Emotional & Practical Issues

but the financial and emotional impact of Ike will be severe.

The insurance companies were only quoting $16 billion in losses... which is pretty small.

The emotional impact is severe because we've become a nation hooked on disaster stories... ever since 9/11.

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Dealing With Disaster - The Emotional & Practical Issues

Sarge, I took in a woman friend of mine and put her in my guest room for about 5 months after Katrina. When she arrived at my house, it took us about ten minutes to move her in - that was because she had that little left of her possessions. Her entire extended family all lost their homes and possessions to the flood. There were about 30 households in all and this happened, not because they lived in the same neighborhood, but because the flooding was so widespread. Most of them are still gone, having been scattered from Houston, San Antonio, Little Rock, and Memphis, to Atlanta. They were a very close family, who gathered most Sundays after church for a communal meal. Obviously, they can no longer do this and the sense of loss is obvious when you spend time with any of them.

I didn't lose my home but I did lose my job of seven years. When I found a new job, several months later, it was in NW Louisiana, 350 miles from my home. Until June of 2006, I maintained two homes and had to drive back to the New Orleans area every Friday evening. Every Sunday evening, I returned to my apt. in NW La, so that I could start the new week. While this was certainly a lot less of a hardship than was suffered by most, it was fatiguing and very expensive.

During one of those weeks, my "roommate" was attacked in my front yard, and then again inside of my house. While she was not sexually assaulted, she was beaten and injured. This sort of thing was going on, inspite of the best efforts of police and the National Guard.

During the months between Katrina and my re-employment, I helped friends with the messes that they had to deal with. I used a 24 foot utility trailer that I had, to help them clear out ruined furniture, appliances, sheetrock, clothes, etc. I also moved a couple of them - one, four times. In some cases I simply did the work for them, because they couldn't get back to New Orleans easily. In each situation, there were irreplaceable family photos and heirlooms lost to the floodwaters. There were children uprooted and families scattered, too.

Katrina took 1,836 lives according to Wikipedia, 1,577 of them being Louisiana residents. That number is apparently accurate as of May 2006, and I can tell you that further deaths have been confirmed since then.

The emotional impacts of these storms aren't about melodrama - they are about real lives lost and torn apart. People don't become affected because they are cry babies - they do so because the experience is stressful. Coming home to see how your house made out, only to find a pile of rubble, or even just that it had 7 feet of water in it, can be devastating. I have seen people who were literally in a state of shock, once they realize that everything that they owned was destroyed.

Even after the initial experience, the stress goes on. Trying to navigate the problems associated with insurance, finding suitable contractors and building material, living as an entire family in tiny quarters, etc., is very difficult. Even the programs that were supposed to help, often became part of the mess. Here in Lousiana, we have a program called the "Road Home." It has been a disaster of its own from "day one." First, people were told after the fact that, what was supposed to be a grant to make up for rebuilding costs that insurance didn't cover, became taxable income. Considering the size of some of the grants, the taxes due were quite large. The next thing to crop up, was that the Road Home program notified people, after most of them had begun to rebuild, that money would be deducted from their grants in many cases, based upon the amount of money received in the insurance settlement on the property. The problem here wasn't so much that these rules existed, after all, it was grant money. Instead, it was that the rules kept changing and people made comittments that they then couldn't keep. My assistant at work almost had to stop rebuilding her house because of this - she thought she had a certain amount of money to work with and it was reduced considerably in the middle of the project.

These are but a few of the issues that occur after a major natural disaster. I opened this thread because I have seen the problems and the stresses first hand, and felt like I might be able to offer some insight to those dealing with Ike. I haven't posted in a couple of days because I think threads like this need to go at their own pace, rather than being pushed by the OP. That said, I really think you have missed the point - no one is suggesting that readers here who may have been affected by the storm, are a bunch of "namby pambies" who can't "buck up" and deal with this. On the other hand, they are human, and giving them a few tips in some of the problem areas, both practical and emotional, just might help them get through it all.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Dealing With Disaster - The Emotional & Practical Issues

Jay, Katrina and Ike, were two very different animals. Katrina was a truely huge natural disaster. Ike on the other hand, was pretty minor for a hurricane. The damage done with Ike was somewhere around 16 billion... with katrina it was close to or over a trillion. They are so completely different that it bothers me when I see and hear the news reporting on Ike as if it were Katrina. It's not! Yeah, it's terrible what happened to anyone that was affected by Ike, just like it's terrible when a small thunderstorm destroys someone's house. But look at the big picture and compare it to the others... and it's just not that bad. What I think is even worse is that I think the news on Ike is intentionally inflated because we as a society have become hooked on tragedy since 9/11. It's almost like we long for it, so we can watch it on T.V. as if it were the Jerry Springer show.

I don't mean to trivialize it either, I know there are people that lost everything, even some people on this very forum. Hopefully they got out alive and had good insurance though... and they can begin rebuilding their lives. I'm just saying there's a lot fewer of those cases with this storm than there were with Katrina, or Ivan, or even Andrew (going back many years).