美国国家公共电台 NPR 6 Months After Paradise Burned, Trauma Endures For Kids And Adults

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Six months ago, the deadly Camp Fire devastated¹ the small Northern California town of Paradise. It was the deadliest fire in the state's history and claimed more than 80 lives and destroyed thousands of homes. Since then, residents have been grappling with rebuilding their lives while dealing² with the ongoing³ trauma⁴ from the fires.

Now that the initial shock has worn off, mental health officials in Butte County schools say that students are experiencing a second wave of trauma. From member station KQED, Michelle Wiley has more.

MICHELLE WILEY, BYLINE⁵: A backhoe is lifting pieces of desks and twisted hunks of metal from what used to be Paradise Elementary School and dropping them into a nearby truck.

(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLANGING)

WILEY: For students that used to go here and others impacted by the deadly Camp Fire, they've had a lot to deal with in the six months since the area was ravaged⁶ - housing and security, a loss of routine and the ongoing trauma from the devastation⁷. And now, experts say, it's getting worse.

DENA KAPSALIS: A lot of acting⁸ out, tiredness, inability to focus...

WILEY: Dena Kapsalis is director of student services for the Paradise Unified⁹ School District.

KAPSALIS: ...Shutting down, being unable to maintain relationships with adults or peers.

WILEY: The trauma response team in Butte County knew they'd start seeing the second wave of symptoms from kids around now, especially on the six-month mark. Significant anniversaries like that often trigger survivors¹⁰ of disasters into reliving moments of the traumatic event. Kapsalis says counselors¹² try to view these signs of trauma as forms of communication.

KAPSALIS: With kids, it's right out there on the table, and then we can respond. You know, as the adults in the community, we can respond quickly and maybe more accurately¹³ to what's really happening with them. So they're communicating loss. They're communicating a need for help, a need for support.

WILEY: But while kids may show their symptoms more obviously, for counselors, seeing those signs in teachers can be even more difficult.

KAPSALIS: With adults, it's much harder - right? - because they have all kinds of systems of coping that often disguise what's really going on with them.

WILEY: Counselors have started making themselves available in staff rooms and hallways so they can encourage teachers to talk about what they're experiencing and connect them with services. But despite a need for mental health support across the board, officials say they're still struggling to hire enough counselors.

Roy Applegate helps lead the trauma response team in Butte County schools. He says they currently have six schools that have requested help, but they don't have any staff to send them.

ROY APPLEGATE: It's a little bit like rain in the desert in the summer. It just - as soon as it hits the ground, it disappears. We can give our counselors who we have hired as many hours as they need, and they're full up all the time. And they're working to the max.

WILEY: Applegate even came out of retirement¹⁴ to help out. So did fire recovery counselor¹¹ Pamela Beeman.

PAMELA BEEMAN: My husband is my witness. When I got the phone call, I said, oh, no, I really don't want to go back to work. And they said, no, we really need you, and we need more people. So you just can't say no to that.

WILEY: Beeman says she's committed to finishing out the spring term at her school but doesn't know if she can continue on after that.

BEEMAN: Those schools are really needy¹⁵. They (laughter) really use the help.

WILEY: Counselors say as much as people in Butte County want to be over the trauma, the recovery period is just getting started. And California's next fire season is right around the corner. For NPR News, I'm Michelle Wiley in Butte County.