Tornado Warning Signs You Need to Know

How to Cope with Disaster

Disasters are upsetting experiences for everyone involved. The emotional toll that disasters bring can sometimes be even more devastating than the financial strains of damage and loss of home, business or personal property.

Children, senior citizens, people with access or functional needs, and people for whom English is not their first language are especially at risk. Children may become afraid and some elderly people may seem disoriented at first. People with access or functional needs may require additional assistance. We will cover how to cope with disasters in the following areas:

• Understanding the Events of the Disaster
• Signs of Disaster-Related Stress
• Easing Your Stress
• Helping Kids Cope

If you would like more information about tornado shelters, please feel free to contact us – we are here to help!

Where to Find Counseling after a Natural Disaster

Children and older adults are of special concern in the aftermath of disasters. Even individuals who experience a disaster second hand through exposure to extensive media coverage can be affected.

Contact local faith-based organizations, voluntary agencies, or professional counselors for counseling. Additionally, FEMA and state and local governments of the affected area may provide crisis counseling assistance.

As you recover, it is a good idea to make sure that you have updated your family disaster plan and replenished essential disaster supplies just in case a disaster happens again. You will always feel better knowing that you are prepared and ready for anything. Also, keep the following in mind:

• It is common to want to strike back at people who have caused great pain.
• Everyone who sees or experiences a disaster is affected by it in some way.
• Focusing on your strengths and abilities helps you heal.
• Profound sadness, grief and anger are normal reactions to an abnormal event.
• Everyone has different needs and different ways of coping.
• It is normal to feel anxious about your own safety and that of your family and close friends.
• Focusing on your strengths and abilities helps you heal.
• Acknowledging your feelings helps you recover.
• Accepting help from community programs and resources is healthy.

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Signs of Disaster Related Stress

When adults show the following signs, they might need crisis counseling or stress management assistance:

• Fear of Crowds or Strangers
• Fear of Being Alone
• Difficulty Communicating Thoughts
• Limited Attention Span
• Tunnel Vision / Muffled Hearing
• Difficulty Concentrating.
• Guilt & Self-Doubt
• Colds or Flu-Like Symptoms
• Disorientation or Confusion
• Difficulty Maintaining Life Balance
• Difficulty Sleeping
• Reluctance to Leave Home
• Poor Work Performance
• Depression & Sadness
• Easily Frustrated
• Increased Use of Drugs / Alcohol
• Headaches / Stomach Problems
• Feelings of Hopelessness
• Mood-swings

Contact Ground Zero Storm Shelters if you have any more questions! We are here to help!

Easing Stress

The following are ways to ease natural disaster-related stress:

• Do not hold yourself responsible for the disastrous event or be frustrated because you feel you cannot help directly in the rescue work.
• Use existing support groups of family, friends and religious institutions.
• Talk with someone about your feelings - anger, sorrow and other emotions - even though it may be difficult.
• Spend time with family and friends.
• Participate in memorials.
• Take steps to promote your own physical and emotional healing by healthy eating, rest, exercise, relaxation and meditation.
• Maintain a normal family and daily routine, limiting demanding responsibilities on yourself and your family.
• Seek help from professional counselors who deal with post-disaster stress.

Ensure you are ready for future events by restocking your disaster supplies kits and updating your family disaster plan. Doing these positive actions can be comforting.Contact Ground Zero Shelters if you have any questions.

Resources and Tips to Help Kids Cope with Natural Disasters

Disasters can leave kids feeling frightened, confused, and insecure. Whether a child has personally experienced trauma, has merely seen the event on television or has heard it discussed by adults, it is important for parents and teachers to be informed and ready to help if reactions to stress begin to occur.

Children may respond to disaster by demonstrating fears, sadness or behavioral problems. Younger children may return to earlier behavior patterns, such as bed wetting, sleep problems and separation anxiety. Older children may also display anger, aggression, school problems or withdrawal. Some children who have only indirect contact with the disaster but witness it on television may develop distress.

Recognizing the Risk Factors

For many children, reactions to disasters are brief and represent normal reactions to "abnormal events." A smaller number of children can be at risk for more enduring psychological distress as a function of three major risk factors:

• On-going stress from the secondary effects of disaster, such as temporarily living elsewhere, loss of friends and social networks, loss of personal property, parental unemployment, and costs incurred during recovery to return the family to pre-disaster life and living conditions.
• Loss/grief: This relates to the death or serious injury of family or friends.
• Direct exposure to the disaster, such as being evacuated, observing injuries or death of others, or experiencing injury along with fearing one’s life is in danger.

Vulnerabilities in Kids

In most cases, depending on the risk factors above, distressing responses are temporary. In the absence of severe threat to life, injury, loss of loved ones, or secondary problems such as loss of home, moves, etc., symptoms usually diminish over time. For those that were directly exposed to the disaster, reminders of the disaster such as high winds, smoke, cloudy skies, sirens, or other reminders of the disaster may cause upsetting feelings to return. Having a prior history of some type of traumatic event or severe stress may contribute to these feelings.

Children’s coping with disaster or emergencies is often tied to the way parents cope. They can detect adults’ fears and sadness. Parents and adults can make disasters less traumatic for children by taking steps to manage their own feelings and plans for coping. Parents are almost always the best source of support for children in disasters. One way to establish a sense of control and to build confidence in children before a disaster is to engage and involve them in preparing a family disaster plan. After a disaster, children can contribute to a family recovery plan.

Meeting Your Child’s Emotional Needs

Kid’s reactions are influenced by the behavior, thoughts, and feelings of adults. Adults should encourage children and adolescents to share their thoughts and feelings about the incident. Clarify misunderstandings about risk and danger by listening to children’s concerns and answering questions. Maintain a sense of calm by validating children’s concerns and perceptions and with discussion of concrete plans for safety.

Listen to what the child is saying. If a young child is asking questions about the event, answer them simply without the elaboration needed for an older child or adult. Some children are comforted by knowing more or less information than others; decide what level of information your particular child needs. If a child has difficulty expressing feelings, allow the child to draw a picture or tell a story of what happened.

Try to understand what is causing anxieties and fears. Be aware that following a disaster, children are most afraid that:

• The event will happen again.
• Someone close to them will be killed or injured.
• They will be left alone or separated from the family.

Reassuring Children After a Disaster

Suggestions to help reassure children include the following:

• Personal contact is reassuring. Hug and touch your children.
• Calmly provide factual information about the recent disaster and current plans for insuring their safety along with recovery plans.
• Encourage your children to talk about their feelings.
• Spend extra time with your children such as at bedtime.
• Re-establish your daily routine for work, school, play, meals, and rest.
• Involve your children by giving them specific chores to help them feel they are helping to restore family and community life.
• Praise and recognize responsible behavior.
• Understand that your children will have a range of reactions to disasters.
• Encourage your children to help update your a family disaster plan.

If you have tried to create a reassuring environment by following the steps above, but your child continues to exhibit stress, if the reactions worsen over time, or if they cause interference with daily behavior at school, at home, or with other relationships, it may be appropriate to talk to a professional. You can get professional help from the child’s primary care physician, a mental health provider specializing in children’s needs, or a member of the clergy.

Monitor & Limit Exposure to the Media

News coverage related to a disaster may elicit fear and confusion and arouse anxiety in children. This is particularly true for large-scale disasters where significant property damage and loss of life has occurred. Particularly for younger children, repeated images of an event may cause them to believe the event is recurring over and over.

If parents allow children to watch television or use the Internet where images or news about the disaster are shown, parents should be with them to encourage communication and provide explanations. This may also include parent’s monitoring and appropriately limiting their own exposure to anxiety-provoking information.

Use Support Networks

Parents help their children when they take steps to understand and manage their own feelings and ways of coping. They can do this by building and using social support systems of family, friends, community organizations and agencies, faith-based institutions, or other resources that work for that family. Parents can build their own unique social support systems so that in an emergency situation or when a disaster strikes, they can be supported and helped to manage their reactions. As a result, parents will be more available to their children and better able to support them. Parents are almost always the best source of support for children in difficult times. But to support their children, parents need to attend to their own needs and have a plan for their own support.

Preparing for disaster helps everyone in the family accept the fact that disasters do happen, and provides an opportunity to identify and collect the resources needed to meet basic needs after disaster. Preparation helps; when people feel prepared, they cope better and so do children.

Helping Other After a Natural Disaster

The compassion and generosity of the American people is never more evident than after a disaster. People want to help. Here are some general guidelines on helping others after a disaster:

Donate Money

Financial contributions to a recognized disaster relief organization are the most effective donation to make.

• Most needed and the most efficient way of helping those impacted by disaster.
• Allow voluntary organizations to fund response and recovery efforts, obtain goods and services locally, and provide direct financial assistance to disaster survivors to meet their own needs.
• Make a financial contribution to the voluntary organization of your choice.
• If you need help in determining who to give to, National Voluntary Organization Active in Disaster website has a list of major non-profits that are active in disaster work or you can make your offer through the National Donations Management Network.

When the public supports these voluntary organizations with financial contributions, it helps ensure a steady flow of important services to the people in need after a disaster.

Volunteer 

Volunteer with a recognized organization involved in disaster response and recovery prior to the next disaster event.

• Volunteer with a non-profit organization and be trained before the next event to find meaningful volunteer opportunities following a disaster.
• There are many organizations and faith-based groups in your community that have active disaster programs and need volunteers
• The following groups offer a wide range of services following a disaster:
  
  www.nvoad.org
  www.serve.gov
  www.citizencorps.gov
  www.helpindisaster.org
  www.networkforgood.org

The generosity and kindness of people around the country does a lot to help communities heal from the tragic consequences of disasters.

Donate Goods

Learn ways that you can effectively help others after a disaster. Please note that it is best to confirm what is needed before taking action.

• Donate in-kind goods that are specifically requested or needed by recognized organizations.
• Unsolicited donated goods such as used clothing, miscellaneous household items, and mixed or perishable foodstuffs require helping agencies to redirect valuable resources away from providing services to sort, package, transport, warehouse, and distribute items that may not meet the needs of disaster survivors.
• Confirm the needs by contacting the voluntary organization of your choice before starting to collect.
• If you have a quantity of a given item or class of item to donate, and you need help in determining which organizations to give to, you can make your offer through the National Donations Management Network.

Everyone is moved when they hear the news that disaster has struck a community. By learning the best ways to donate and volunteer, we can all make a huge difference in the lives of those affected.

Don’t wait any longer! Start protecting your family by ordering your shelter today!