Californians head back home to altered lives, communities
PETALUMA — Some have lost loved ones. Many have survived near-death experiences. Others have lost their homes and a lifetime of possessions.
A week after fleeing raging wildfires, tens of thousands of emotionally ravaged Californians have drifted back home to find their lives and their communities dramatically altered.
At a Red Cross shelter in Petaluma on Tuesday, 69-year-old Sue Wortman recalled the words that raced through her mind when she fled the flames near her home in Sonoma.
“We’re all going up in smoke,” she thought at the time. Since then, she’s been walking around in a daze.
Firefighters gained more control Tuesday of the massive wine country wildfires, even as other blazes erupted in mountains near Los Angeles and Santa Cruz.
Meanwhile, officials and trauma experts worried about the emotional toll taken by the grueling week of blazes.
Wortman has been living in her RV outside the Petaluma shelter, while hundreds of other evacuees sought refuge in tents and trailers and on cots inside the fairground facility. She has sought comfort among friends and with her dogs but knows that feeling won’t last.
“I think it’s really going to hit when we go home and see the de-
struction,” she said.
Highlighting the concerns of mental health professionals, the California Psychological Association has emailed an urgent request calling for volunteers to help wildfire evacuees cope with the trauma they have faced and its aftermath.
“There is tremendous acute and long term impact and we are needed right now to help,” Dr. Chip Shreiber, the association’s disaster resource coordinator, said in the email sent Monday to a distribution list of 13,000 licensed psychologists across California. “Please get the word out.”
The fires that swept through parts of seven counties were the deadliest and most destructive series of blazes in in California history. At least 41 people were killed and 6,000 homes destroyed.
On Tuesday, authorities identified the only firefighter to die in the blazes as 38-year-old Garrett Paiz of Missouri. He was killed Monday when a water transport truck he was driving rolled over near one of the wildfires in the Napa Valley community of Oakville.
An estimated 100,000 people were evacuated at the height of the fires, and about 34,000 remain under evacuation. Many have yet to find out if their homes are still standing.
“There’s still a lot of shock and numbness when you’re in the middle of it. You’re in the high-gear of trying to cope,” said Peggy Lednerspaulding, head of outpatient behavior health services at St Joseph’s hospital in Santa Rosa, one of the cities hardesthit by the fires. “But now we’re starting to enter into the next phase, as they have control over the fires. That shock and disbelief starts to wear out, and we have a lot of stress and anxiety and grief and worry.”
It’s common for survivors to feel a range of emotions — sadness, anger, irritability — and to suffer flashbacks or nightmares while having trouble sleeping, especially in a shelter surrounded by strangers.
Physical reactions from the stress can include stomach aches and headaches, but many evacuees are reporting headaches and sore throats from the thick smoke still cloaking the area.
Evacuees were advised to pace their exposure to news and media, which provide information that can reduce anxiety but also become overwhelming. Talking and debriefing is helpful, and parents should encourage children to talk and express their fears, Ledner-spaulding said.
Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane has advised anyone with a family member or loved one who has lost everything to accept that they can’t fix the damage but they can offer support.
“Provide a compassionate listening ear right now, and let them feel whatever they’re feeling,” said Zane, a former grief therapist.