Cedar fire veterans counsel new disaster victims

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Rancho Bernardo:

Adam Richardson, 40, lost his home in the 2003 Cedar fire. On Thursday, he was at the Rancho Bernardo service center counseling residents who shared the same fate.

‘We were in a room that looked exactly like this gymnasium in Scripps four years ago, teary-eyed like everybody else here, with not really a clue on how to start,’ Richardson said.

Richardson said the experience had been cathartic, although he continued to have flashbacks of his own trauma.

‘It was really creepy driving through here, because it looked like our community did four years ago,’ Richardson said.

Around the center, filled with government and private agency representatives offering aid, hordes of people milled under banners telling them where to go.

‘This place is intimidating,’ Richardson said. ‘You walk through and there’s 40 different tables. It’s pretty overwhelming to someone who got out with the clothes on their back and not much else.

‘We’re trying to give people a road map from A to Z on how to get back home: what’s important today, what can wait a year, what struggles and fights you’re going to have with your insurance company.’

At Richardson’s ‘survivors’ table, people could pair off with ‘mentors’ who had gone through the Cedar fire, had the same insurance company and could counsel them through the rebuilding process. Copies of ‘The Disaster Recovery Handbook & Household Inventory Guide,’ compiled from the experiences of other disaster survivors, were also available.

We ‘let people know they’re not alone,’ Richardson said.

-- Tami Abdollah