Post Traumatic Stress Takes Toll of Fire Victims : Disaster: When the shock of loss wears off, painful realization sets in. Guilt plays a powerful role, counselors say.

Six weeks after the great fire, the emotional numbness that almost comforted the community has gone, and health care workers say an increasing number of residents are forlorn, adrift and in pain.

“We’re finding that people are beginning to kind of come out of the fog,” said Jay Fournier, a Laguna Beach Community Clinic coordinator. “We’re seeing more people (who say), ‘I’m lost. I don’t know what to do. I can’t even begin to put Christmas together at all.”’ Suddenly, the fire has been replaced by a flood--a flood of people with symptoms that counselors are calling a version of post traumatic stress disorder, the same reaction suffered by many combat veterans.

Everywhere, there are little scenes, movements and peculiar actions, the signs of lives violently shaken and disordered by disaster.

Here’s what the counselors observe:

When Santa Ana winds kicked up recently, one woman who had been evacuated during the Oct. 27 fire automatically began loading cherished photographs into her car.

A man who lost his home in the blaze goes to work each day, but sits idly in his office.

Some elderly people have gotten the habit of taking their dearest possessions wherever they go.

So immobilized by depression are other residents that counselors are making house calls.

“We’re finding more and more calls are coming in now than initially,” Fournier said, adding that many seeking help did not lose homes. “Everybody in this community has been affected in one way or another by the fire.”

Fournier said that calls have been up 30% to 40% in the last two weeks as compared to the first two weeks after the fire.

Aided by a federal grant, clinic workers last week completed “critical incident stress debriefing” for 150 city workers, including police officers. All four city schools have extra counselors available to help children grapple with newfound fears.

Many people seeking help are strong individuals, but simply can’t remain unaffected by the frightening fire that tore through the hills and through parts of the town, destroying 366 homes, causing more than $400 million in damage and, despite the fact that there was no loss of life, taking an incalculable toll on human emotions.

Even many of those who escaped with everything can’t elude survivor’s guilt. For fire victims who did lose their belongings, it is hard to regain their bearings.

“I think the initial shock of losing everything has worn off and the reality of not having any of your possessions is starting to sink in,” said Jeff Powers, whose Canyon Acres home burned. “I spent a whole afternoon just buying a few pots for my kitchen and it was just exhausting. The thought of doing that for my whole house gets to be overwhelming.”

*

In neighborhoods such as Canyon Acres and Mystic Hills, where rows of homes have vanished, residents are also realizing they lost something intangible: the daily pulse of a community. Some particularly miss the sounds of children.

“I think that’s the hardest part, losing the sense of my neighborhood,” said Powers, who is now living in an apartment near Coast Highway. “And that’s something that’s going to take quite a long time to replace. And perhaps some of these people will never be able to move back.”

Even Powers’ dog Surath--who once stood watch over turtles and fish in a hillside pond and guarded the rural Canyon Acres against coyotes--is feeling the strain.

“His whole routine is different,” Powers said. “Now, he’s got Coast Highway to guard, and he’s not happy.”

It’s worse for others.

“Some people, they lost their cars as well as their homes and they’re feeling extremely immobilized by depression,” said psychologist Judith Z. Clark, who conducts group counseling sessions at the Laguna Beach Presbyterian Church on Thursdays at 7:15 p.m.

For those whose homes burned, the stress has mounted as they attempt to replace basic necessities, compose itemized lists for insurance companies and trudge from one meeting to another to learn what they must do next.

“It’s just an extremely stressful time, just in terms of the physical demands on the people,” Clark said.

And despite the festive holiday lights that once again brighten downtown Laguna Beach, counselors say that, for some, Christmas has become just one more emotional burden.

“I had one woman burst into tears and say, ‘I’m not even going to think of it,” Clark said. “She walked into Price Club and saw all the decorations and she just turned around and walked out and said, ‘I can’t face this.’ ”

Even those who did not lose homes are “downscaling their Christmases” this year, she added. “I’ve talked to people who are not having the usual parties, they’re not putting up a tree this year, they’re not exchanging gifts with friends like they always have.”

Sometimes, the emotional ache stems from “survivor’s guilt” which can afflict people because they didn’t lose homes or because they sense they somehow don’t feel bad enough. At the same time, people whose houses did burn mentally flog themselves over what they might have done differently.

“In my groups almost every single person has experienced guilt for some reason or another,” Clark said. “They feel like, if they’d had enough time or if they’d been more organized or thinking more clearly, they could have saved a lot more belongings. People have taken every angle to hook their guilt onto.”

To help tackle the problems, outreach workers and counselors have been speaking at civic groups and community organizations.

*

In addition, services are available through the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, the Laguna Fire Relief Coalition, a program based at the Laguna Presbyterian Church and The Psychology Center, a private group which offers free counseling on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

The center began offering services at the request of then-mayor Lida Lenney. Lenney, who said she felt depressed and tired after the fire, was one of the first customers.

The county mental health care agency got a federal grant that allowed clinic workers to conduct stress prevention seminars for city workers.

Designed initially for rescue workers, the program is similar to those used to help survivors of plane crashes and natural disasters. The program encouraged groups of city workers to talk about what they were doing at the time of the fire, to relive specific sights and smells.

Clinic workers described the symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome to city workers to help them “recognize that they’re not going crazy,” Fournier said. “It has made a big difference. . . . I think everybody needed to talk.”

But for some, talking is more difficult.

At the Laguna Beach Seniors Center last week, Fournier said the words did not come easily.

“They were having just a difficult time talking about the fire,” he said. “It was just too much, too much fear and ‘how can we ever be safe from arsonists’ and those sorts of things.”

Clark said she has uncovered similar fears among the elderly, some of whom are still “taking belongings with them wherever they go,” she said.

“Some of them feel like, ‘Will I ever be safe again?’ (or) ‘I’m never going to buy anything worth anything again.’ And this is part of the recovery aftereffect.”

* YOUNG VICTIMS

Many students find it tough to cope in the aftermath of the Laguna fire. B4