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Tuesday, January 14th, 2025

The Psychological Toll of California’s Catastrophic Fires

Author:     April Rubin
Source:     Axios
Publication Date:     Jan 12, 2025
 Link: The Psychological Toll of California’s Catastrophic Fires
Stephan:  

I lived in Los Angeles, was the Senior Fellow at Philosophical. Research society, and ran my research laboratory, Mobius Society, and television production company Clearlight Productions, there for 20 years. I know all the neighborhoods destroyed by the fires very intimately. At least four of my long-time friends have lost their homes in this disaster. I have found the media coverage very repetitious and not very detailed beyond the burn details. For instance, where are all these people sleeping; where are they eating; where are they going to the bathroom; what are their kids doing; where are they getting the meds they need? I also don’t see enough focus on what these fires are telling us about climate change. Nor is there enough discussion about the insurance situation. But what really gets me is I have seen no real discussion about the psychological impact on the millions who live in the greater LA area, nor a proper recognition that it is going to take not weeks or months but years, maybe decades, for a new Los Angeles to emerge, and what kind of city that is likely to be.

Entire neighborhoods in Southern California have been destroyed by deadly wildfires, displacing communities that don’t know what — if anything — they’ll have to return to.

The big picture: Researchers have linked wildfires to long-lasting anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in survivors, in addition to the well-documented physical toll.

  • Both the loss and uncertainty surrounding wildfires are traumatic, Jeff Katzman, a Connecticut-based psychiatrist who grew up in Pacific Palisades, California, told Axios.
  • “There is the lingering, not knowing status of what happened,” he said. “There’s the experience of loss of an entire community that has generations of meaning.”

Between the lines: Like other modern tragedies, destruction in California is being shared immediately on social media.

  • “There’s something potentially positive about it that people who have suffered together or are in this together can connect and can share resources and can share experiences,” Katzman said.
  • On another level, he added, it can be “difficult to integrate” seeing so much relatable, devastating information, leading to a sense of helplessness.

Context: Research published last year found a link between wildfires and worsened mental health by analyzing psychotropic prescription data on 7 million people over an eight-year period following 25 large fires on the West Coast.

  • People exposed to California’s […]
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