The Trauma I Don't Know

One of the main reasons I like working with MDS is to make myself face trauma.  I am one of those fortunate people who have never had to deal with the kinds of devastation faced by so many of our clients.  Unfortunately, my trauma-free life has left me ill-equipped to feel the depth of empathy I need to be able to relate to people who have lost everything except their lives.  Like many, I feel tremendous sadness for anyone affected by a hurricane, earthquake, flood, or fire.  By the time the disaster has left the front page. . .er. . trending headlines though, I find it easy to stop thinking about that specific event, and quickly move on to other concerns.  For first responders helping at a scene of destruction, they do experience an often overwhelming sense of helping during helplessness.  An organization like Mennonite Disaster Service has an immediate response mission, but I think the most important role for me is their continued presence with the communities in which we serve.

One flood victim in Grand Forks, British Columbia related to me that " . . .everything was better for a while while the news trucks were everywhere in town, but once they rolled away, so did many of the aid organizations.  You guys are the only ones left."

When you listen to survivors relate their experiences a year or two after the initial event, you get a story steeped even longer in grief, seasoned with disillusionment and marinated in abandonment.  One common theme is the waiting, waiting, and waiting for the slow wheels of bureaucracy to turn enough to offer even a miniscule amount of help or hope.  I listened to a family we were rebuilding a house for relate how they still owed over a hundred thousand dollars on their mortgage for a house they were no longer permitted to live in because it now lay within a declared flood zone.  They were offered $20,000 in compensation.  Having felt their anguish, I think I can experience just a tiny share of that pain, but have so very much farther to go.  Here in Paradise I have not had the chance to meet many of the people we are working with, but have heard some of their stories.  

One thing that is evident here is that after the Camp Fire there was not the availability of neighbor helping neighbor that we often think of with natural disasters.  In many neighborhoods there was 100% destruction.  "Neighbor" meant the next town, and there was a tremendous outpouring of support from outside, but that again is the kind that fades over time.  The level of trauma here is also a kind I can barely imagine.  When I drive around the streets of Paradise, I can see places I know from the many videos taken by persons fleeing the fire, and try to imagine the scene  black as night, with trees falling across the road which is my only escape route.  How would I react?  What would I be feeling about my loved ones whose status I don't know?  About the house on the ridge to which I retired as a reward for years of hard labor.  What would it be like to have no escape except to take shelter in this creek, since there was no other way to survive?

Here are before and after pictures of the site of one of the houses we are building.  The new house is about where the old one was, on the right of the road just after the sharp left turn.  The creek above is at the lower left of the aerial view.

These are a trauma I need to be able to relate to.  This is what draws me to MDS.