We have seen so much of the coverage of the floods in Texas. This alarming storm brought sudden rises in water where over 120 lives have been lost and over 170 individuals are still missing. It destroyed camps, mobile homes, motor homes and almost anything in its path. Some are projecting far more lost lives than currently known. There are over 2,100 workers that have been tirelessly combing the countryside to find anyone who may have survived or who have been lost as a result of this tragedy.
The stories of heroism were abundant. People have risked their lives to save others from the waters of destruction. Many rescues with dangerous risks have been a daily occurrence. People have been amazed at all that has been done and yet there is still a great deal of traumatizing discoveries of lost loved ones. Even the time-passing phases of the searching have been hard to accept since each day brings more tragedy.
As I think about the impact of these traumatic experiences on the many heroic workers, I can’t help but recognize the level of post-traumatic stress that they must have experienced. On one news report I saw a huge pile of debris which they would not remove for fear that there would be bodies within that debris. These types of issues and discoveries of brutal deaths are a daily part of their findings that are humanly devastating.
How do they manage this level of post-traumatic stress? There was a group of them who decided to meet at the end of each day to share each of their daily experiences. This was how they chose to cope with the reality of their trauma. There is no doubt that they were full of stress and anxiety about what they had just seen. The group support seemed to help them process what they had been through that day.
These workers are so courageous and are sacrificing their physical efforts and mental health in order to provide rescues to those individuals who have been impacted by the flood devastation. Those of us who are trauma-informed recognize that the memories they are storing will have a major impact on their mental health as well. It is part of our normal human processing to hold those memories and relive them for years to come. It is a normal consequence of post-traumatic stress that has lasting effects and can be a source of emotional struggles in the future.
It is why I believe that an important part of the relief intervention should be an intentional approach of helping workers process their post-traumatic stress. I know that there are chaplains and mental health professionals on site, but I think the process should be much more systematic. There should be trauma-informed group leaders, therapeutic trauma-based training and the offer of therapy for those who have been directly involved with these types of tragedies. It is the least that we can do to provide support for these dedicated workers who have sacrificed for those in great need as a result of a natural disaster. I believe there is much more we can do to support them by providing professional and quality therapeutic interventions to help minimize the impact of their experiences to their mental and emotional health. They certainly deserve an intentional approach to help them process their own trauma as rescuers with so much traumatizing exposure.
Gerry Vassar
President/CEO
