• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Natural Disaster And Then The Rain Came

Status
Not open for further replies.

Justmehere

Sponsor
Last year, my area had massive fires and flash flooding (yes, both) and the rain and fire season (also called summer) has started again with a small wildfire this week.

When the hugs fired and flood came last summer, I was also enduring the legal process of trauma done by human hands. When I went to the courthouse to give my victim impact statement about an assualt against me, I walked over flood mud covered roads with national guard helicopters flying overhead and FEMA trucks outside the courthouse. It was surreal.

My whole community was in a traumatized state.

The orginal judge was still bailing out his house, so they brought in another judge. They had moved the hearing at first, but the courts were backed up and they decieded to just get it done if I could make it. I could. I lived just a few blocks from the courthouse, so it was easy for me. The DA was delayed trying to get through to the courthouse and the perps defense attorney was late too. As myself and the perp waited in court for them to come, with the sounds of helicopters evacuating out people higher in the mountains than us, he tearfully asked to plead guilty on all counts and take whatever sentence he deserved. The judge appropriately stopped him, saying we had to wait for the lawyers. Then he plead guilty again. (The hearing went remarkably well.)

A friend was going to come for support, but I told her not to try! It turned out she was stranded anyhow and had to be airlifted out because of all the flooded out road (whole rivers and creeks had changed their paths when the floods came.)

I lived on the third floor and I suffered little damage. The Red Cross evacuated to our building the first night the floods got really bad. I woke up to the sounds of sirens and rain and people yelling for help. I let several people stay in my tiny 1 bedroom place that first long night as the waters rose and flooded out the first floor in the middle of the night and the sirens kept going off all night. Our building was the highest around and we waded through the thickest rain I have ever experienced to help people come to our building as their homes filled with water so fast...

It was surreal.

The smell... The creeks had flooded out the sewers. The water receded quickly, within hours, as is the nature of flash flooding, but there was flood mud that smelled like sewage on EVERYTHING.

There was tremendous disruption and loss of property, but thankfully, not many lives were lost.

During the 3 months before all the flooding, there were huge and fast wildfires around my town and area. There was ash falling from the sky on and off all summer long. I have very mild asthma, and it rarely bothers me, except around smoke... It was a very long summer struggling to breathe.

Between the fires and floods, I had to evacuate suddenly (within 10 minutes or less) on 5 different occasions.

They test the flash flooding sirens every week, and I always jump. Every time the rain comes, I cringe. Rain used to be so relaxing! Whenever I smell campfire smoke, I look up to make sure it's not a wildfire I'm smelling (they smell like campfires at first).

For me, it's different to survive this kind of trauma than trauma at human hands. It's also all mixed in together. When I remember the assult, I remember the natural disaster, and vice versa.

I had PTSD before this, and I would still have it if this had not all happened - but I think I still need to work through this as well. At least so that I can enjoy the rain again.
 
Last edited:
I'm so sorry it created more trauma on top of the awful stuff you had to also deal with. I very much relate to the "whole community was in a traumatized state" aspect - I think rather than feeling "well at least I'm not alone in what I'm going through" for me, it just made it all seem so much more overwhelming. More so that those around me who I always saw as 'strong' and 'able to cope' were just as traumatized as I was. I have not been in fires or floods, but my city had several devastating, major earthquakes, and thousands of aftershocks, that took nearly two years to settle down. Even now, three and a half years later, we still get a moderate shake every month or so. The first big quake (a 7.1, at 4:35 in the morning) destroyed many buildings, wrecked a lot of infrastructure, but it was the smaller but more powerful 6.3 quake 5 months later that was the most traumatic, as it killed nearly 200 people. some of those people were alive and trapped in a burning building for 2 days before they died, unrescued. It all unfolded a few kilometres from my house.

I also relate very much to the SURREAL aspect of seeing things you NEVER thought you would see - national guard helicopters flying overhead - in my city, it was army tanks rolling around IN the middle of the city centre - where what was the very heart of the city, with its tall buildings and where 50,000 people worked. There was a night curfew, enforced by police and army, to avoid looting and riots. PIctures of army tanks rolling through destroyed cities belonged on the news from those war torn countries 'over there', NOT in my city. I still cannot fathom it, I really cannot.

Of having the army helicopters fly over my house, carrying the bodies of the dead that had been recovered - my house was in the direct flight path to the make shift morgue set up at the nearby army headquarters. I could tell how much the death toll had gone up, simply by how many times that damn helicopter (with its very distinct sound) flew over my house. All the while, the aftershocks kept going. 200 of them in just the first 24 hours following every big quake.

For me, it was the fact everything I took for granted had gone or was destroyed - including the very things I relied on so much but never knew I did. The things I took for granted - power supply, safe drinking water, petrol supplies. We had to boil all our water for 7 weeks, due to risk of sewage being in it use to severely damaged water and sewage pipes. Our rivers and beaches had sewage pumped into them because of the broken pipes. Petrol ran out, and we had to queue for blocks and blocks to try to get some - at over inflated prices. There was not enough ambulances to take the sick and injured to the hospital, and the roads too damaged in some cases to pass. And that those killed were people I thought were 'strong' and would survive anything - I guess I had the 'hero' fantasy that police, doctors, were immune to being killed and trapped - but they too were among the dead.

No doubt, you too had similar disruptions to the 'basics'. It certainly highlights how POWERLESS we are over EVERYTHING. twenty seconds is all the time it took in the fatal quake to change everything. 20 mere seconds!

Have you talked to your T about this, and how one triggers the other? Is it all rain that triggers it for you, or particular types (i.e. heavy, or if the day is the same temperature as when you had the severe floods?). For me, it's sounds that trigger fear of another quake - a truck going past, a train, an airplane … I freeze, waiting for the shaking to start. It's definitely gotten better over the past year or so. What helped me is when the quakes slowed down enough that they no longer felt life threatening. I spent most of 2 years in constant fear of the 'next fatal quake'. Do you think that if you get through this time of year, without a big flood or fire, it will help? Has your fear been there for all the year, or is it a bit worse lately, as it's coming up to the time of year it happened?

The other big difference between a personal tragedy versus a community one, is that there is often a public recognition or memorial service on the anniversary. For me, it feels mixed. In some ways, it's nice to know I am not the only one grieving and affected - there is a certain strength in numbers BUT at the same time, it also feels so much 'bigger' and it's impossible to minimize the huge impact it has had. Will there be public events for this coming up for you? If there is, would you go to them, or not sure?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top