Bonds and homes are built in recovery

33,000 acres, destroyed 1,700 homes and other structures and claimed two lives. The team coordinates home construction, debris cleanup on private property and referrals for survivors to professional counselors and pastors.

“The volunteers organized by the recovery team filled that gap of feeling alone,” Primeaux said. Christian Aid Ministries volunteers built her house, and Primeaux worked right along with them.

Such stories of forged friendships between volunteers and wildfire survivors are everywhere as Bastrop County residents continue to rebuild. That’s the good part. The bad: The anniversary of the state’s most destructive fire stirs emotions with survivors. But then the recovery team is there, too, offering counseling.

Team goes to work

The recovery team is a hidden treasure in Bastrop County. Christine Files, a Bastrop attorney and executive director of the team, whose main job is to raise money, is unpaid. The team has a small paid staff of five. Money from the National Emergency Grants program at the U.S. Department of Labor pays for eight more temporary case managers, though their work ends this month unless the grant is extended.

The team operates on a $987,000 budget this year and relies heavily on donations, including those from other nonprofit groups such as the Austin Community Foundation, the Meadows Foundation, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, the Bastrop Christian Ministerial Alliance and the Austin Disaster Relief Network. Most of this year’s budget is earmarked for building houses, though the team is short $112,100 of its fundraising goal to cover all expenses.

The recovery team began with 100 volunteers right after the fires broke out. As the work expanded, bylaws were written, and the team reported its progress to the county officials. Earlier this year, the team appointed a board and became a nonprofit, allowing it to solicit donations and apply for grants. The team is overseen by a 10-member board of directors and an advisory committee of business leaders and county officials.

In the past year, the recovery team has organized and funded the rebuilding of more than 30 homes — most of them through Mennonite Disaster Service and Christian Aid Ministries. The faith-based groups will return this fall and build about 10 more homes. In 2013, ambitions are high and, provided that the recovery team has the money, 36 more homes for low-income survivors are planned. Other volunteer groups will build 20 more.

But, Files said, “it’s not over” for wildfire survivors like Primeaux.

“The Colorado fires earlier this summer ignited emotions around here,” Files said. “We had our first fire-related suicide this summer, but that person was not one of our clients. However, the feelings of hopelessness and despair are very real for those who don’t have the finances to move forward with recovery.”

In July, counselors saw an increase in attendance at two support group meetings for wildfire survivors, Files said. “We’ve been told by the experts there will be a crescendo of emotions that will be greater than the emotions that occurred during the fire because there was help at that time. You talk to people and they want to say they are OK, but they are not OK,” she said.

This summer, the Texas Department of Transportation began removing dead trees in the public right of way along Texas 71. That, too, stirred emotions. “Those were just black sticks, but a tree was still there, and now there won’t be anything. It is making people face the reality that if we get any drier this year, they fear another wildfire,”