How Do You Pick Up the Pieces After a Disaster? From a Wildfire Survivor

The 2003 San Diego wildfires took 16 lives and nearly 2500 houses, including my own home. Thankfully, my spouse, my cats, and I escaped with our lives. As a survivor, I feel that it’s my responsibility to help inform others on necessary steps to take after such a disaster. This is the first of a multi-part series.

A special “thank you” goes to the Red Cross, George Kehrer, and FEMA (yes, FEMA).

On the day my house burned down, we grabbed everything that we could pack in the car, including the two cats, and headed straight for the nearest executive temporary housing hotel, figuring that they wouldn’t give us too much flack about the cats. This naturally leads to my first piece of advice:

1) Many aid organizations recommend that after a disaster you go immediately to the nearest emergency shelter. Many of these shelters are typically at in high schools or other large public buildings that may have a large room like an auditorium.

First, understand that most emergency shelter will not accept pets. Second, while this may sound anti-social, if you can afford it, find refuge anywhere but at an emergency shelter. In the aftermath of disasters, people are desperate and rip-offs in emergency shelters can be a common occurrence.

2) Once you find temporary shelter, contact your insurance carrier as soon as possible, even if you are unsure that your home has suffered any damage at all. Tell them to send you a complete copy of your policy.

It took three days before the police let us back into our neighborhood. We didn’t know if our house had burned to the ground or if we had been spared. Sadly, our house was gone, and we had to find a place to live during the time that it would take to recover our losses and rebuild.

3) Rule of thumb: recovery typically takes two to three years (yes, you heard me right), so the place you choose should feel as homey as possible. Some survivors of the San Diego wildfires rented unscathed houses back in our neighborhood near their burned-out houses for continuity, especially for the sake of keeping children in their school district. Since our children were full grown, we moved to an area where we’d lived years earlier, a place near the beach where we had felt at home, a place far enough away that it didn’t remind us of the fire.

4) When selecting your home for the next two or three years, read through your policy to find out how long the insurance company will pay for “additional living expenses” (ALE). If the period is less than the two to three years of recovery, ask your insurance company for the ALE in one lump sum and spend this sum with the intent of making it last two to three years.

5) Go to the FEMA recovery center once one is established for your former neighborhood. You’ll need to do this to be in FEMA’s disaster recovery system. In our case, the recovery center was called a “one-stop-shop” and it was held in a closed elementary school gym.

Besides FEMA representatives, the one-stop-shop had representatives from other aid organizations both private and public, including the Red Cross, the IRS (a much kinder gentler IRS, if you can believe it), and the Small Business Administration. There were also church and community groups present.

A tip for survivors: collect as much information from as many different services as possible. What might seem useless at the moment may be invaluable information later.

(The next part of this series offers additional post-disaster advice on how to deal with your insurance company.)

SOURCES:

http://www.carehelp.org/survivor_tips/tips.htm

http://www.carehelp.org/survivor_tips/recoveryfaq.htm

http://www.carehelp.org/survivor_tips/recovery/disasterstress.htm

http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_605_,00.html