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From : Lila Hayes
Sent : Feb 6, 2006
Subject : OFRG update

 Old Fire Recovery Group Email Newsletter

 
Information compiled by
Lila Hayes, Coordinator
Old Fire Recovery Group
www.oldfirerecoverygroup.org
909-266-1459 vm/fax
 
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Index
 1. The Next House Blessing
 2. Write it off: Journal writing is one of the best ways to deal with stress [and] sorrow...
 3. Our New Website
 4. CDI Announces $1 Million Fine Against Farmers Insurance Group
 
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In The News
  1 New [California] state disaster-aid affiliate, Jan 8, 2006 , LA Times
  2. Fire Victims' Ordeal Lingers Long After The Smoke Clears, Dec 11, 2005, Los Angeles Times
  3. What's the best way to help?, Jan 16, 2006, DNN
  4. A Policy of Deceit, Dec 19, 2005, NY Times
  5. Taxing questions for disaster victims, Associated Press, Feb 5, 2006
  6. Be prepared for disasters, Jan 22, 2006, LA Times
  7. A Lesson on the Need for a Home Inventory, Jan 29, 2006
  8.  Better planning could cut fire danger, Jan 13, 2006, The Press-Enterprise
  9. Friends in need, Feb 6, 2006, The Press-Enterprise
 10. Beware Katrina-fouled cars, January 26, 2006, The Press-Enterprise
 
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On The Web
 1. Disaster News Network
 2. Phoenix Business Group
 
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1. The Next House Blessing
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Rebuild San Bernardino County was founded to help uninsured, San Bernardino County fire survivors a way to rebuild their lost homes.  This Sunday, Feb 11 they are having their first "House Blessing".
~
Rebuild San Bernardino County and homeowners Jose and Olga Hipolito, cordially invite you to their House Blessing
  • Date:  Saturday, February 11, 2006
  • Time:  1 PM – 2PM
  • Location:  25352 Los Flores Drive, San Bernardino
            Major cross street:  Del Rosa and Eureka (north of the
            30 freeway)                          
  • Lunch & Refreshments provided by the Hipolitos
  • Contact:  Kristen Fratt
  • Phone:  909.884.6891 x. 222
Please join us as we celebrate their return home after the 2003 California Wildfires!
 
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2. Write it off: Journal writing is one of the best ways to deal with stress [and] sorrow...
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This was in the January 2006 Better Homes and Gardens and thought it was applicable.
--
Hunter Darden of Statesville, North Carolina, was heartbroken over the sudden loss of her sister. Some months later, by chance, a friend gave her a journal as a birthday present, a gift that soon turned out to be far more powerful than it originally appeared.

Hunter began to write about her sister and the deep sorrow she couldn’t seem to shake. “The personal journaling helped me to organize my thoughts and settle my rampant emotions,” she says. “It was so therapeutic.”

Hunter learned by experience what researchers have been studying for more than 20 years.  Journal writing, or “expressive writing” as it’s often called within the scientific community, has proven to be very beneficial. It can help people find meaning or come to terms with a stressful event, says James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a leading authority on expressive writing. When we put troubles into words, “we’re able to get past it. Once we move past it, we don’t worry about it or obsess over it,” he says.

Research shows that people who engage in expressive writing feel happier and less negative than before writing. Symptoms of anxiety and depression are reduced after writing about emotional upheavals. Other studies have documented improvements in physical health as well. In an experiment conducted on people with chronic illness, Joshua M. Smyth, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Syracuse University and author of The Writing Cure, found that expressive writing improved lung functioning among asthma patients and lowered pain among arthritis sufferers. A few studies have shown that writing can enhance the immune system and lower blood pressure. Smyth cautions that while expressive writing may benefit some individuals, “it is not a magic bullet. It is not a substitute for other psychological or medical care, although it may be a useful supplemental activity.”

As director of the Psychopathology and Emotion Laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia, clinical psychologist Denis Sloan, Ph.D., has studied the effects expressive writing has had on trauma survivors. She found that the people who wrote about their traumatic experience were sick less, made fewer doctor visits, and had higher levels of cortisol, an important hormone that helps us cope with stress. Based on the findings, expressive writing might help those who have endured traumas ranging from war and natural disasters to domestic violence and life-threatening illness.

“Expressing emotions is the key to obtaining benefits,” Sloan says. If you try to cope with a traumatic event by not talking or thinking about what happened, you’ll fail. “A person needs to, in some way, allow themselves to feel the emotions they have surrounding the experience,” she says.

Through his research, Pennebaker discovered that expressive writing is more effective when people organize their jumbled thoughts into a coherent story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. In his book Writing to Heal, he recommends including information on the setting, the characters, the event itself, the consequences, and what effect it’s had on you. When his study participants did this, he saw that they were able to construct a “meaningful story; one that made sense to them.”

The death of her sister actually led Hunter Darden to write a fictionalized account of all her past turmoil. In her book, Tapestry: A Story of the Healing of the Soul, Hunter included journal entries to show how “little by little through the course of writing, you can find your answers.” BETSY DRUTECCO

 
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3. Our New Website
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Since we are no longer an official group, I thought I would change "gears" a bit and do a new website... one that has a broader scope than just Old Fire survivors.  Out of that came the Disaster Survivor Network www.disastersurvivornetwork.com.  The framework of the site is basically the same, but I will be editing any direct reference to our recovery and replacing it with general references.
 
You will notice when you visit www.oldfirerecoverygroup.org, the basic website is still intact, but it talks more about the recovery effort in the past.  You will also see a link to the Disaster Survivor Network on the top of each page instead of the search box.
 
I'm hoping that this will help other disaster survivors by having a resource they can come to for information not readily available in any other one location including links to other communities who have created survivor groups!
 
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4. Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi Announces $1 Million Fine Against Farmers Insurance Group
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Enforcement action stems from 1,000 violations in company’s handling of consumer complaints
SACRAMENTO – Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi on Monday announced a $1 million fine against Farmers Insurance Group following settlement negotiations over how the company handled consumer claims.
 
[more HERE]
http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/0070-2006/release-008-06.cfm
 
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In The News
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1. New [California] state disaster-aid affiliate
January 8, 2006
LA Times
 
A national coalition dedicated to preparing Americans for natural disasters recently launched a California affiliate in Sherman Oaks, pledging to create a fund for people without enough insurance.
 
James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and retired Adm. James M. Loy, former deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, co-chair the national coalition ProtectingAmerica.org. The new affiliate, ProtectingCalifornia.org, will focus on financially preparing Californians for the next big earthquake. The fund, paid into by insurance companies and private investors, would cover insurance claims that exceed homeowners' coverage.
 
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2. Fire Victims' Ordeal Lingers Long After The Smoke Clears
Originally titled "Home? Not Yet" in the LA Times
Dec 11, 2005
Ann Perry
Los Angeles Times
 
For some Southern Californians, the notion of being home for the holidays is a particularly poignant wish -- the same one they had last year. Although the ashes from the disastrous wildfires that swept from San Bernardino to San Diego counties two years ago have long turned cold, many fire victims are still trying to put their lives back together.
 
[more HERE]
http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?sectionId=46&id=46286
 
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3. What's the best way to help?
January 16, 2006
Disaster News Network
 
After riveting disaster images evaporate from TV news, public compassion dries up - just when disaster survivors need focused help.
 
Months, weeks - sometimes even days - after a disaster, it's hard to recreate the wave of "armchair urgency" people feel when they're soaking in graphic footage. Some people show up early at a disaster site with good intentions but little preparation, said Bernard Scrogin, a veteran responder with Lutheran Social Services of Texas and Louisiana.
 
[more HERE]
http://www.disasternews.net/news/news.php?articleid=3030
 
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4. A Policy of Deceit
December 19, 2005
New York Times
By JIM HOOD

Jackson, Miss.


RESIDENTS of the Mississippi Gulf Coast withstood a devastating blow from Hurricane Katrina. Now, as they face the enormous task of rebuilding, they are threatened with yet another crippling misfortune - this time at the hands of insurance companies, which are trying to deny coverage. That's why the State of Mississippi has filed suit to get the courts to clarify that insurance companies must cover the water damage that policyholders sustained from the hurricane.

For years these companies have sold policies that insure Gulf Coast residents against loss from the effects of hurricane winds. The people who bought these policies reasonably believed that they were covered for damage ranging from a blown-off roof to a four-foot surge of water in the house. But now that the homes and businesses of many policyholders have been destroyed or seriously damaged, these insurance companies are denying coverage on the ground that their policies excluded water damage.

[more HERE]
http://www.sbeneworleans.com/news/article.cfm?content_id=1093
 
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5. Taxing questions for disaster victims
By David Twiddy, Associated Press
Feb 5, 2006
 
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Almost five months after Hurricane Katrina chased Yolonda Prevost from her East New Orleans neighborhood to her sister's place in Kansas City, she spends her days trying to get back home searching for apartments and arranging for repairs to her drowned house.
 
The last thing Prevost wants to worry about is doing her taxes.
 
[more HERE]
http://www.sbsun.com/search/ci_3479072
 
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6. Be prepared for disasters
LA Times
January 22, 2006

John Garamendi, state insurance commissioner, last week urged homeowners to guard against financial ruin in the event of another catastrophe like the Northridge earthquake, which hit the Southland 12 years ago on Jan. 17, 1994.
 
"Most Californians who own homes have spent their entire lives building toward that purchase," he said in a statement. "Don't let a disaster wipe out that accomplishment and your finances in seconds. Update your insurance policies now and make sure that your coverage is adequate."
 
[more HERE]
http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/printedition/la-re-update22jan22,1,5726062.story
 
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7. A Lesson on the Need for a Home Inventory
If your house is ruined, a video of its contents will help when you file a claim with your insurer. But most people don't go to the trouble.
January 29, 2006

It was 4 a.m. and wind-whipped flames were licking the trees 100 yards from my back window. A brush fire was threatening my house and everything in it.
 
I was preparing to evacuate — some of my neighbors were already gone — and I realized I had no inventory of the belongings I might have to leave behind. As my kids were throwing photo albums, overnight bags and the dogs into the car, I cursed myself for not following my own good advice.
[more HERE]
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-perfin29jan29,1,6158058.column
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8.  Better planning could cut fire danger
PREVENTION: With millions of dead trees still in the forest, zoning should be more strict, experts say.
January 13, 2006
By BEN GOAD / The Press-Enterprise
 
Better recognition of the Inland area's vulnerability is needed among the region's planners and builders to prevent a repeat of the devastating 2003 firestorms, participants of a three-day fire-prevention summit concluded.
 
Dozens of firefighters, forest managers and community leaders from Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties discussed their findings at the culmination of Living with Fire in Chaparral Ecosystems, a conference held in Riverside.
 
[more HERE]
http://www.pe.com/localnews/hemet/stories/PE_News_Local_D_fire13.1d5f2fcf.html
 
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9. Friends in need
Students add personal touch to Katrina aid
February 6, 2006
By CLAUDIA BUSTAMANTE / The Press-Enterprise
 
When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, ravaging New Orleans and other areas, many Americans took action.
 
But now, more than five months later, the damage still lingers and the attention has waned.
 
[more HERE]
http://www.pe.com/localnews/southwest/stories/PE_News_Local_S_sgreatoak06.8f265a6.html
 
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10. Beware Katrina-fouled cars
Potential rust buckets hit market in West
January 26, 2006
 
By PHIL PITCHFORD and MICHAEL FISHER / The Press-Enterprise
Hundreds of thousands of vehicles that sat submerged in saltwater and sewage after Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans are slowly creeping into the supply of used cars being sold around the country, experts say.
 
The cars, which officials say have already made their way to California and nine other states, are being rehabilitated and reregistered, sometimes more than once, by unscrupulous sellers who are trying to wash away evidence that the vehicles were ever in such bad shape.
 
[more HERE]
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_crudcars26.185c1edb.html

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On The Web
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1. Disaster News Network
I was very excited to find this site!  They even have podcasts.  Look for the podcast link.
http://www.disasternews.net
 
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2. Phoenix Business Group

When I found this website I was amazed.  This is the message I have been trying to get to people, but not in such a concise way.  I think all disaster recovery organizations need to take this as their next main mission.  Imagine how much more good they could do if they freed up those funds which should be paid for by other responsible parties... usually insurance companies.

~

It is essential , in order to lessen the seriousness, strength and severity of the disaster, to limit the demand on privately funded disaster relief agencies, and to limit the financial and emotional strains on the victims, that every asset and benefit directly available to the victims is brought into play first . The major source of such underused assets and benefits is found through other responsible parties or in insurance that was purchased, but the full benefits of which are not being paid to consumers.

http://www.consumer-protection.com/public.html
 
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Old Fire Recovery Group
www.oldfirerecoverygroup.org
909-266-1459 vm/fax