Noel Holdsworth, MS, ARNP, CTS, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and a certified trauma specialist, was devastated when her Port Charlotte, Florida, home was damaged during a
“freak storm” in February 2004. “I lost the roof of my house and everything in my house,” she recalled.
That turned out to be a fortuitous event, though, because when Holdsworth and her husband rebuilt their house, they had to build it according to the Miami-Dade Count building code compliance standards, which are much more complicated and strict than previous building codes. When Hurricane Charley hit Port Charlotte in August, the Holdsworths’ house withstood the more-than-150-mile-per-hour winds that destroyed buildings all around them. “It’s because of that that I have a roof and windows,” she said.
Having their house in relatively good shape also allowed the Holdsworths to focus their energies on helping friends, neighbors, and others in their community who suffered traumatic losses.
“I understood what it was like to lose everything, but not at this time. Because of that, I was able to give back to the community,” explained Holdsworth, who was an emergency nurse for more than 15 years before changing her career focus.
Finding a Way to Provide Care
The Holdsworths’ mental health clinic office in downtown Port Charlotte did not fare as well: The office roof was torn off, and the interior was soaking wet. So Noel Holdsworth began treating patients - who had suffered varying degrees of loss - on the front stoop. “Patients would just stop by, and I’d try to sit with them for 20 or 30 minutes. I treated anyone who dropped by,” she said. Holdsworth was also called upon to perform community debriefings in and around Port Charlotte, as well as debriefings to businesses and organizations through the local employee assistance program. She based those presentations on the CISM (critical incident stress management) model.
While dealing with the destruction of their homes and property, Port Charlotte residents had to endure nearly two weeks without electricity and running water, which meant no air conditioning, no working showers, and excessive amounts of mosquitoes and other pests. “What I heard more than anything was that the visual images were getting to people,” Holdsworth recalled. “Just driving and not being able to go more than half a block without seeing devastation - that constant visual of nobody having a roof, and houses covered in huge sheets of
plastic with piles of clean-up trash everywhere - is discouraging.”
Categories of Coping
Holdsworth said she has noticed four categories of response among people she has encountered. “Number one is the people who do not live in the area and came here to help. Those people never missed a beat, and just gave and gave, because the emotional investment wasn’t there,” she noted. “The second group is the people who live here and lost something, but weren’t here for the storm. They didn’t experience the fear part of it; their major focus was on what they lost. The third group was those that were here during the storm.
They felt the winds; they felt the fear; they know the reality that this was a life-threatening storm. Many of these people have had other places to go at the end of the day - a family’s home that has air conditioning and water. The last group is the group that stayed here for the storm, and worked and never left. They have the loss and the fear, and they’re just tired. Their focus is on their gratefulness to be alive.”
Much of the assistance and clean-up work in the community was being done by volunteers coming in from all over the country, Holdsworth noted. “Some of the greatest sights of these past few weeks have been watching the DMATs (Disaster Medical Assistance Teams) from all over come, and not just in one or two cars or vans, but 10 or 15 ambulances coming at a time. What was complished here in the first 24 hours after Charley took two weeks after (Hurricane) Andrew.”
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