The day after the fire, we came back to our Lahaina neighborhood to bring emergency supplies for the community only to find our home as ash. Losing the house, all “the things,” didn’t matter. When I saw where my kids’ rooms used to be, I knew that’s where they would have been when the fire ripped through had we not gotten out. I broke down. My family was safe — that’s all that mattered.
I believe the human brain can only handle so much in disaster. Mine felt like an onion, layers upon layers peeled back as the months passed. “Fire brain” is real and is essentially like a severe brain fog. I walked into rooms and forgot why I was there. In conversations, I would forget what I was saying mid-sentence. I couldn’t complete thoughts. I’d find myself standing in an aisle at the grocery store feeling OK, then suddenly break down.
I could not remember everything we lost. I tried to make lists but had a hard time thinking of what to write down. I went to Target for supplies because I had nothing, but I got totally overwhelmed. I didn’t know where to start. I found myself constantly searching for things, forgetting they had burned. I was sure I had it somewhere, something as simple as nail clippers. Months after the fire, it hit me like a flash that all my Christmas ornaments were gone. I collapsed. Other times, a gust of wind caused me to panic. Sirens. Flashing lights. It was all too much. This is normal. It’s PTSD.
I wanted to leave Lahaina. Desperately. I decided to stay, and I’m glad I did. I mostly did it for my kids. I could not imagine bringing them somewhere where no one understood what they had been through, where no one had true empathy. My kids needed help — a lot of it. They needed teachers who had been through it, had seen what happened, so that my kids could feel less alone. Staying was the best thing I did for our family, and for me.
Below are some tips and insights based on what helped my family get through unimaginable times, and I hope it offers help to those in Los Angeles who need it the most right now.
Tamara Conniff, right, with her husband in the ashes of what used to be their home in Lahania on the island of Maui in Hawaii.
Courtesy of Subject
• Accept help. This was so hard. I’ve never taken help on anything. I learned how to say yes when people asked questions like, “Do you need food? Do you need a place to stay? Do you need clothes?” Yes. Yes. Yes. People want to give, and I learned how to receive.
• Sign up immediately for assistance, from FEMA or the Red Cross. We signed up late because we were on the front lines of disaster relief, and honestly, I could not think about it. We should have signed up earlier. We went to an emergency center and did it in person. Don’t wait. Sign up with humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, which is the best. They met us at our property and were kind, thoughtful and supportive. They helped us more than I can explain. These kind souls travel around the world just to help.
• Find a long-term rental as soon as possible. We moved five times. It was so hard on the kids. Depending on your insurance coverage, it will be covered by what is called “loss of use.”
• Secure a P.O. Box immediately. Once you do, log into all of your accounts and forward all of your mail in addition to canceling all bills and utilities for your old home. Our mail got lost, and we fell behind on bills, car insurance, everything. Having a central place for mail and bills will help avoid this.
• Insurance is a nightmare. We made the call the immediately. Put everything in writing, including all correspondence with your insurance agent. If you talk on the phone, send an email summarizing the conversation. Take notes on everything; no detail is too small. Our personal property lists took time. We could not remember anything, but we finally got a very long list from our insurance agent that had everything a person could possibly own, down to a spatula. It helped us. This is all important.
• Do not go to your property without personal protective equipment like masks, gloves, covered shoes or a full suit. Unfortunately, we did the first time because we were in such shock and needed to see with our own eyes that our home was gone. We shouldn’t have. We didn’t take our kids to the site, thank god. From all the smoke we inhaled at the scene, we had respiratory problems for six months.
• Friends: PTSD does a lot of strange things to people. I sought of lot of guidance from emergency disaster counselors to understand what was happening in my environment. Some friends were heroes, some were not. That was hard. Counselors told me that in the wake of disasters, some people turn inward to rage and become self-absorbed, others turn outward toward service and ways they can help. The latter thrive and survive. Those who turned inward eventually implode and behave in unthinkable ways. I’ve seen it firsthand.
• Find “Best Fire Friends.” We found our BFFs. Everyone has a different kind of trauma. We had friends who lost everything. Friends with survivor’s guilt. Friends who didn’t lose homes but lost businesses. Friends who lost homes but were out of town during the fire. We stayed close to people who had a similar experience to ours — an emergency escape from the fire and a complete home loss — because we understood each other without having to speak. BFFs were and continue to be our anchors. We stayed active and close to our community. We cried with each other. We shared resources. We compared notes on insurance and legal action. Community got us through. When the news shifts and everyone starts to forget what happened, your BFFs won’t because you’re all still putting the pieces of your life back together.
• The world doesn’t stop. I took a work call the day after the fire. I was a hot mess but muddled through it. That was difficult. People where empathetic, but some didn’t know what to say or how to respond. I was lucky because I run my own company and can work remotely. Many of my friends had no workplace to go to.
• People say (and post) stupid things. Ignore them. So many have not been in a disaster like this, and they would say, “FEMA is there, you must be OK now.” No, I’m not. Or, “How fun, you get to buy all new things!” Excuse me, what? Six months later, I heard, “Your house must be rebuilt by now.” Really? Be careful with your words.
• Focus on family. The fire was hard on my kids. My daughter was 4, and she remembers everything. She still talks about it. She remembers every toy she lost. She’s asked why God burned down our town. I said, “God can’t prevent horrible things from happening, but he can help us heal from it.” That was the best I could come up with. For six months, she thought sunsets were fires. She called Minnie Mouse on her toy phone and told her that all of her dolls burned. She wanted to paint Lahaina in rainbows and hug the famous Banyan tree. A child psychologist told me it was her way of healing. We still talk about it 18 months later. My 8-year-old son held it in, or his trauma would come out in bursts of tears. He couldn’t talk to my husband or me but would talk to his friends, especially those who lost everything. A psychologist suggested I try and get back one thing he loved the most, and for him it was his skateboarding competition medals. It took me six months, but I did it. When he opened the box, he burst into tears, he was so happy.
• Be kind to yourself and to others. You will break. PTSD is a part of life. Anyone who has gone through a catastrophic fire and lost a home will always be a fire family. It is my mark now, and that’s OK. I still sometimes take life one minute, one hour, or one day at a time. I know now that the unimaginable can happen. I never knew that before. You can’t unknow it. I always have a go-bag ready. I always have a Plan A and Plan B to keep my family safe. I have only seen my husband cry once, when a stranger gave him the shoes off his feet so we could go into the disaster zone. It’s moments like this that carry you through.
• Lahaina’s got you, Los Angeles. We understand.
Tamara Conniff is CEO of AMR Songs, a rights acquisition fund. She served as editor-in-chief at Billboard and music editor at The Hollywood Reporter and held a top post at Roc Nation. She is one of the founders of Mana Mentors. She previously wrote about her experience escaping the Lahaina fire in an essay for THR that can be found here.
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