Oregon 2020
California 2018
Puerto Rico 2017–2018
Dominica 2017
Texas 2017
2020 — Oregon: Wildfire Response
Eugene, Oregon — Wildfire Deployment Update
Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt
I am in Eugene Oregon tonight…on a Green Cross deployment supporting those skilled and tenderhearted people who rescue animals following a disaster. Some are professional and many are volunteers…and they do it for the joy of getting a tail wag, a slobbery kiss or a loud purr.
But not all stories have a happy ending and often these tenderhearted folks are finding animals that didn’t make it out, or they are seeing horrific sights as they keep looking for a fur baby that can be reunited with their family. The work they do takes an incredible emotional toll and that is where our Green Cross team can help.
Green Cross did this same type of deployment in New Orleans following Katrina. The rescuers would sometimes be huddled in bathrooms crying about what they experienced that day — declaring they could not go back out there. Our specialized support kept the number of animal rescuers up. We also did suicide and crisis intervention on several individuals that were likely to endanger themselves, their teammates and the animals being rescued.
Additionally, the rescuers are often interacting with animal owners who are looking for their animals. As rescuers are not equipped to provide emotional support to animal owners, Green Cross took that pressure off the rescuers by supporting the pet owner. We will do the same thing here in Oregon following this devastating wildfire.
Please donate what you can so that these skilled and tenderhearted animal rescuers can manage the emotional toll of searching. If your fur baby was missing, what would it be worth to you to have people willing and able to keep searching?
2018 — California: Camp Fire, Paradise
Lost and Found — Paradise, California
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
Loss comes in many forms. 86 people lost their lives in and around Paradise, California when a wall of fire swept through the town and destroyed 18,804 structures. The initial missing person’s list exceeded over 1,200 people and an untold number of animals lost their way home. Even when people are located they talk about how disorienting it is to see your name on a missing persons list. Fortunately great loss also elicits great generosity.
We have been working all week in a Disaster Response Center being run out of an empty Sears Building in Chico. The California Office of Emergency Services is providing a one-stop center for fire survivors in coordination with FEMA, the Red Cross, United Way, Environmental Health, and Government Groups including HUD, the IRS, and the DMV. Although the employees of these groups are here to help people who have lost everything, they are making significant sacrifices themselves. Some of the FEMA workers have been here for 10 weeks, living in hotels an hour and a half away in Sacramento, riding a bus to and from work, and staying in touch with their own families around the country through social media.
The people staffing the DMV are all from the town of Paradise, where their own office, and many of their homes burned down. The coordinator of the Environmental Services team has been living in a hotel, cooking on his George Foreman Grille — but he has a smile and a helping hand for everybody.
While working with traumatized people can be very satisfying, it can also result in vicarious stress and compassion fatigue. As mental health professionals, we are trained to recognize this risk in ourselves and others, so we consider it part of our mission to help others who may be finding themselves sad, irritable, or tired of listening to others’ stories. Acknowledging their efforts, listening to their stories, and even bringing them a bottle of water or a snack makes a difference. It is hard to empathize with others when you are stressed yourself, but in the end, we really are all in this together.
2017–2018 — Puerto Rico: Hurricane Maria
Update: January 25, 2018 — San Juan, Team 3
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
Puerto Rico is an island of contrasts. Our flight from Dallas was filled with an eclectic mixture of residents returning home, tourists looking for the sun, and people like us going to work or volunteer. While some were headed to luxury resorts, others were going to homes that still lack power, water, roofs, and the other accouterments of modern life.
On Sunday afternoon our schedule wasn’t booked, so we spent some time at a festival in old San Juan. While walking around we wondered how many of the people who were dancing in the streets, laughing with their friends, and enjoying the food, drink, and craft booths were actually seeking a few hours of normalcy in the midst of their disrupted lives.
Over the next few days we will be doing training in stress management for security officers and facilities managers at a large public hospital, traveling into the mountains with a medical relief team, and teaching the members of a church congregation about compassion fatigue. We know we can’t fix the problems Maria created, but hope we are able to help people realize that to effectively repair the surface of their lives they also have to find ways to deal with the underlying psychological damage they have sustained.
Green Cross with the Iniciativas De Paz Medical Team in Toa Baja
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
This picture was taken from the medical van on the way back from Yabacoa.
One of my favorite movies is Love Actually. Whether we are coming or going, leaving is hard. There is an uncertainty that comes with travel, and a sadness that comes with leaving people we care about. Traveling with a disaster mental health team tends to bring all of this into focus. Eight days ago the members of Team 3 met for the first time in person, in the San Juan Airport. We have since spent 12–14 hour days driving around an unfamiliar city, talking to people about some of the most personal and stressful events in their lives.
As I have found on other deployments, the intensity of the situation breaks down barriers and leaves the team feeling connected in ways that would normally take months or years. We also wonder how some of the stories we have heard will turn out. Will the young mother who had a baby just after the storm get to go back to school? Will the members of the medical brigade be able to keep up their work? There is no way to know the answers right now, but what we do know is that it is human bonds that help people recover, and make volunteering so rewarding.
One of the people we met asked only partly in jest: “Do we have to have another hurricane to bring Green Cross back to Puerto Rico?” We hope not — but if another storm hits, we know we will volunteer to go.
Update — The Three M’s: Yabacoa Municipality
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
One of our gifts to the people of Puerto Rico is the laugh they get when we tell them that Green Cross sent a team made up of a Milena, and two Marys to help people cope with the stress of Hurricane Maria. But all jokes aside, one theme that has emerged in our time here is that we all long for the unconditional love and caring we associate with mothers.
This was particularly apparent as we spent the day working with a Medical Brigade team (Iniciativas de Paz) in Yabacoa, the municipality where Hurricane Maria first made landfall. This rural area was devastated by the storm and four months later the area still has no power. While nurses and physicians took care of people at tables on a basketball court, the Green Cross team circulated among those waiting — and more often than not, disaster survivors were desperate to tell their story and find new ways to think about what had happened.
One man in Yabacoa told us it was a shame that it took a disaster to get neighbors to connect with each other — and we agreed. Mothering is not a function of gender, genetics, or proximity; it is a matter of showing other people you care.
Update — Strong Like the Coqui: Puerto Rico Medical Center
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
We gave a talk on stress and coping to 250 catechism teachers at a Parochial School in the mountain town of Cayey. The conference was held in their auditorium with a microphone and lights powered by a generator. However, their voices were clear and strong as they sang and danced to a song accompanied only by clapping.
The Coqui are tiny tree frogs native to Puerto Rico. They are only about an inch long, but their voice makes up for their size. Like the Coqui, the island of Puerto Rico is relatively small, but it is populated by strong resilient people who have been working to survive. The three members of Team 3 arrived last Saturday and have been doing stress management and compassion fatigue training at the Puerto Rico Medical Center.
Our sessions always start out quietly, as people wonder what we could possibly have to say that would make their lives better. But as we begin talking about stress and compassion fatigue some people light up and become animated, others whisper to their neighbors, and some start crying. By the time we leave we have heard stories of trying to get ready for work when you have to take a solar shower, and washing clothes by hand. We have talked to people who still don’t have power, 4 months after the hurricane landed.
While driving one night we saw a hand-lettered sign on a poster board hanging from a power pole near a freeway entrance. It read: “Puerto Rico we love you. We must go forward like the Coqui.” We are trying to help them say that even louder.
Update — Survivors: Yabacoa & Toa Baja
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
This picture was taken in the central plaza of Toa Baja, which was completely flooded by Maria and still does not have power.
Who among us hasn’t daydreamed about spending a day in a hammock on a tropical island? But that dream rarely extends to riding out a category 4 storm with winds over 150 miles an hour. More than one resident of Puerto Rico told us that the only reason they survived was that their house was made of cement. In Yabacoa people told us that the mountains behind their public housing project had gone from green to gray and brown. In Toa Baja the river flooded the town and forced many people to live on the second story of their home.
Perhaps the people most prepared to deal with the aftermath were the older residents who had grown up without modern amenities and lived through other storms. One elderly woman told us she just took a sleeping pill the night of the storm, and got up in the morning and set up her barbecue on the porch because no storm was going to make her go hungry.
One of the most moving quotes we heard, loosely translated, said that after the storm stripped the leaves off the trees it was easier to see the people around you. If resiliency depends in part on your ability to find the silver lining in a bad situation, then the people of Puerto Rico deserve to have streets lined with silver.
2017 — Dominica: Hurricane Maria
Update: October 25, 2017 — Dominica Deployment
Led by Lemuel Williams
Our teams from Trinidad have done an incredible job of responding to Hurricane survivors by running group sessions and visits with schools and disabled survivors, shelters, churches, and other relief organizations involved.
2017 — Texas: Hurricane Harvey
Update: September 24, 2017 — Strength After the Storm
Dr. Lorrie Slater
The amount of debris and devastation in Rockport, TX and Port Aransas, TX is overwhelming but the people who are here are truly amazing. Today we spoke with government officials who are trying to offer help and logistics for all the donations, visiting volunteers, and local people who are affected by Hurricane Harvey. We met with people who came from Louisiana offering food to those in need. We spoke with grateful, hungry people who were glad to have a good meal and a shady place to rest. We went to the tent city where displaced people are living because they have nowhere else to go. We took the ferry to Port Aransas and spoke with locals and volunteers who were thankful for the ability to offer a hand and the generosity of strangers.
In each place we heard stories of fear and survival, loss and hope, of loneliness and community. I am humbled by the privilege to sit or stand and receive their stories, to spend just a moment and be invited into the privacy of their pain. I am also humbled by their fierce determination and strength. We came for people like a government official who had moved to Port Aransas just two weeks before Harvey hit and lost her home along with most of its contents. With tears in her eyes she shared of the struggle to remain strong for her family and community. The phrase I have heard the most in my time here is “God is Good.” These Texans continue to see His goodness in times of devastation and loss. I can learn much from them.
Update: September 24, 2017 — Resilient Texas
Dr. Bill McGee
I met Jim (not his real name) in the camp set up for those who had nothing before Harvey. The hurricane was just the most recent horrible event for him. In the past five weeks his mother had died, he was evicted from his apartment, was dropped in the camp, and survived Harvey. And yet he was holding on to the sometimes elusive thing we call hope. He mostly wanted someone who would listen to him. He honored me with his story.
There are others that I have been privileged to encounter: the high school coach who brought students from a rival school to hand out food and drinks; the restaurant owner who gave out thousands of good Texas barbecue dinners to his neighbors at no cost; the couple that stopped us at a traffic intersection to ask where they could volunteer. What I find are people who have put their lives on hold to help others — proud to call each other friends, from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Minnesota, Wyoming, Canada, and so many other places.
Update: September 19, 2017 — Final Day Together, Team 2
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
Green Cross Team 2 has completed their final day together in Rockport. Some of us leave tomorrow to return to our daily routines, and others head home on Thursday. Meanwhile a new team of 4 trauma specialists will be arriving from Georgia to take up the baton. But just as Rockport has been changed by Hurricane Harvey, we have been changed by our time here. We have been reminded that despite all the bad things we see on the news, the world is full of kind and caring people who want to help each other. We also noticed that no matter how much people have lost they still want to be able to help others and to laugh. We all hope that the next time we come back to Rockport we won’t be wearing green vests — we will be here to enjoy this beautiful town.
Update: September 18, 2017 — “The Calm Down Team”
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
We woke this morning to light rain and no electricity. Although it eventually came back on, it again reminded us of how tenuous the trappings of modern life really are. Our team rotates out in a few days, so we know we will be slotting back into normal lives — but the residents of the Texas Gulf Coast won’t have that luxury for months or even years.
And yet, we will miss the sense of purpose and camaraderie we have shared here. State troopers, police officers and FEMA and TEMAT representatives ask for our help, and we have been asked to do a community presentation on how parents can help their kids cope with stress. We knew we were truly a part of the solution when someone in town suggested that we just start calling ourselves the Calm Down Team!
Update: September 17, 2017 — Home Sweet Home
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
We trapped and killed a rat tonight, behind the refrigerator in the house where we are staying. And yet, here in Rockport we are spending our nights in relative luxury. For our headquarters, Green Cross is renting a home that is still being repaired from the storm. The roof of the carport is gone, windows have been replaced, and there are holes in the walls covered with duct tape — but it is structurally sound. The same cannot be said for many other buildings in this community. Approximately 35% of the buildings in Rockport have been totally destroyed, and far more damaged.
The residents we have spoken to who rode out the hurricane report that they spent hours clutching their family members and wondering if they would survive. Since then they have spent most of their energy figuring out how to meet their basic needs and rebuild their lives. And they all want someone to hear their stories, to validate their feelings, and to remind them that their lives matter.
Update: September 16, 2017 — Chaos Doesn’t Have to Control You
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
The members of our Green Cross Response Team spent the day working with people at Disaster Distribution shelters in Rockport, Copano Bay, and Port Aransas. Everywhere we went we heard people comment that “their minds weren’t working right” or they “just couldn’t think” or “were too tired to remember what they came to do.” The sense of being confused and disorganized is certainly exacerbated when the town you live in and love no longer looks the way it did a month ago.
Clearly it will take time to restore order from the chaos, but in the meantime creating a routine, getting enough sleep, and taking breaks to relax can all help. We can’t always manage our environment, but we can choose how we think and respond to the challenges we face. The brain, like the rest of our body, takes energy to work properly — don’t forget to rest your mind as well as your muscles.
Update: September 15, 2017 — The Vest
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
It is hot and getting hotter here in Rockport. Although the ground is still strewn with branches, sheets of metal, and water-soaked furniture, the leaves are starting to come out on the trees and plants are blooming again. HEB and Walmart are open, although their hours are limited and neither building came through the storm unscathed. Smaller businesses are starting to serve food again, and everywhere you go you hear the sound of saws and hammers. But many of the town’s volunteers and residents are finding it hard to see the flowers for the weeds.
There is actually a pattern to disaster recovery. In the early stages people are caught up in the struggle to survive, encouraged by stories of sacrifice and heroism. But as reality sets in, people get frustrated by the slow pace of recovery. That’s when having the chance to talk to someone who can help you step back, alter your perspective, and see the larger picture matters. And that’s where Green Cross comes in. Our green vests stand out as we spend time talking to people standing in line to get cleaning supplies, waiting for food, or trying to clean up their yards.
Update: September 14, 2017 — Harvey’s Melting Pot
Mary McNaughton-Cassill
On Day 20 after Hurricane Harvey made land in Rockport Texas, the town resembles a Beehive that has been tipped upside down and shaken. The streets are lined with piles of discarded carpet, furniture, and tree branches. Even some of the seemingly indestructible palm trees were uprooted or bent, and roofs all over town sport blue plastic tarps. In the meantime, people everywhere are searching for mementos of their lives in the rubble, and sharing stories of what it was like to ride out the storm.
In a situation like this, emotions are close to the surface. People tear up while laughing, and say they are fine when their body language indicates anything but. However there is also a tremendous sense of purpose. People are handing out bottled water on every corner, sorting truckloads of supplies, and cooking hotdogs and hamburgers for total strangers. As I stood on the edge of a Relief Center created and staffed by property owners who themselves had just lost their business, one of the workers looked at me and said: “This is the Melting Pot right here — we are all Americans.”
Update: September 14, 2017 — Intervention by Ice Cream
Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt
You just never know what’s going to make a difference when you are providing crisis intervention and disaster stress management. We rang bells and drove slowly through the streets of a severely impacted neighborhood. Some people looked at us strangely, others came running, and a few stood back till they could figure out what was going on. Then we pulled out a cooler filled with ice cream bars — and now we had their full attention.
We served ice cream… and listened while a 9-year-old wished hurricanes weren’t real. We talked to a man about pride — about how helpless it feels when you’ve lost everything and need to accept help from others. We helped a woman understand why her friend was carefully putting her cooking spices in a packing box so she felt like she had some control over something. And through it all, people laughed, cried, and licked that melting ice cream like they did when they were children and the world felt more predictable and safe. This neighborhood asked us to say thank you to our supporters.
Update: September 14, 2017 — Team Handoff, Birthday Deployment
Nathan Ray
Hurricane Harvey deployment day 6 — if you tried to tell me a few months ago that I would spend my birthday deployed in South Texas doing disaster stress management, I probably would have been more prepared! We met with the 4 incoming Green Cross members and spent a few hours discussing our experiences, the contacts that have been made, logistics, and providing some “just in time” training. Then we hit the field.
In the evening the team came back together at the Dairy Queen to pick up ice cream treats for our community meeting in Copana Heights. Using a big cooler loaned by the Fire Department, we took nearly 100 novelty treats with us. Residents had been watching for our arrival and we had over 20 neighbors who joined us. My heart strings were pulled when a 9-year-old told me “I just wish hurricanes weren’t real.” We talked about how bad things sometimes happen, but that good things can come out of them. Rockport and its residents have taken a piece of my heart.
Update: September 13, 2017 — Carrying the Work Forward
Nathan Ray
How do Green Cross volunteers keep the work going when teams and individuals change? Our Rockport Team 2 is providing an excellent example. The four-person team came into town and met with the assessment team for a briefing and orientation, before jumping straight into fieldwork together. Since then, Team 2 has continued to work with organizations and individuals to whom they were introduced, but have also expanded their reach into the community by using their own interests and strengths to forge new relationships.
Update: September 12, 2017 — Dignity Among the Debris
Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt, Green Cross President
Hurricane Harvey couldn’t take everything. It may have taken boats, birdfeeders, bedrooms, and beautiful homes — but not what matters most: spirit and dignity. By my estimation, the town of Rockport Texas has close to 90% of homes with damage. More than half completely destroyed. Piles and piles of debris. And amid the debris, is dignity.
We visited a middle-class neighborhood with mostly mobile home structures still without power and water. There we met an artist whose art studio had collapsed. She talked about trauma and recovery and described her signature piece of art — a woman figure coming out of a gnarled and twisted tree. We met a 90-year-old Korean War veteran sitting on his porch who, when asked about being afraid, just snorted and said “There is nothing that can compare to that.” And we spent more than an hour with Connie, known to the neighbors as “the woman on the corner who is sleeping outside on an air mattress.” She has created a beautiful little oasis under a small tree — with an air mattress, two pink blankets, an ice chest, a bed for her dog, and 2 tattered lawn chairs — enjoying the birds and the evening sky with her evening cocktail in a tall plastic glass.
Each of these people had catches in their throat and tears in their eyes as our team talked with them. And each expressed gratitude for the time and conversation that had no other agenda than to hear their story.
Update: September 10, 2017 — Hurricanes Don’t Care About Hundred Dollar Haircuts
Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt, Green Cross President
Old pickups, battered mini vans, luxury cars, toy hauler trucks — they are all in the same line today, waiting to pick up new socks, canned food, towels, baby formula, bleach and bottled water. This disaster was a “leveler” — literally and figuratively. Our Green Cross trained team is talking to people in line, “selling” cold water. The price? A smile, a story of gratitude or thankfulness. The people are more than willing to pay.
When we hand out water and talk, what are we really doing? Psychological First Aid, Disaster Stress Management and Cognitive Reframe. We are taking them from being emotionally “crispy” to a place that will let them keep moving towards recovery. Many will return later to help someone else.
Update: September 8, 2017 — Arriving in Corpus Christi
Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt, Green Cross President
First deployment for Harvey, certainly won’t be the last. Arrived in Corpus Christi. Tomorrow we will start to organize and assess how we can help with supporting those so heavily impacted here. Have already heard the stories — “Thank you for being here, how can I reassure my daughter we are all safe now?” And: “I’m an attorney and my house was just 5 miles from the eye… I’m exhausted and we’ve just started the clean up, not sure when I will be able to get back to work.” I tell them they aren’t alone. Green Cross volunteers can help.
Update: September 7, 2017 — In Rockport, Texas
Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt, Green Cross President
In Rockport Texas. The eye of Harvey hit this community outside Corpus Christi. I followed a line of trucks this morning going to Rockport where there is no power, water or sanitation. The trucks were filled with heavy equipment, generators, chain saws and determined faces. When I left, I fell in line with trailers full of broken sheet rock, torn roofing materials, refrigerators that were tied shut and exhausted faces. I am glad Green Cross Academy of Traumatology is here. We need your help to take the financial pressure off those who can come and make a difference.