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12 Wednesday, March 2, 2022 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Santiam Canyon residents burned out by trauma, red tape By Molly Rosbach Oregon State University CORVALLIS 4 More than a year after wild- fires devastated Oregon9s Santiam Canyon, an Oregon State University report paints a challenging picture: Residents are struggling to find housing, wrestling with government bureaucracy, and worried about toxins in the water, air, and soil, all while burdened by the trauma of losing their homes. For the Santiam Canyon Community Health Impact Assessment, OSU research- ers conducted surveys and interviewed dozens of can- yon residents, community leaders, and agency person- nel. They heard firsthand the toll the fires continue to take on survivors9 mental and physical health. <One thing that really came across is just the excru- ciating chronic stress that these folks were dealing with on a daily basis, in the context of the trauma they experienced 4 losing their homes, losing all their pos- sessions, fearing for their lives,= said Sandi Phibbs, co- author on the report and the innovation, evaluation, and research manager in OSU9s Center for Health Innovation. <They weren9t able to live the way they were before. From diet to relationships, it impacted every corner of their lives.= Starting just before Labor Day in 2020, massive wild- fires burned through more than a million acres in Oregon. At least nine people died and thousands of homes were lost, with the Santiam Canyon towns of Detroit, Gates, and Mill City being among the most severely affected. The report focused on Santiam Canyon because Marion County had commu- nity development block grant funding and reached out to the OSU Extension Service to partner on a study. In studying the aftermath, OSU researchers looked at five main areas of concern: environmental health; hous- ing; mental and behavioral health; food security and adequate healthy eating; and personal health. Detroit did not have func- tioning infrastructure for drinking water until seven months after the fire, but while the water is now clean, residents are having a hard time trusting it, said coau- thor Amanda Rau, an assis- tant professor of practice and regional fire specialist with the OSU Extension Fire Program. While 28 percent of sur- vey respondents said breath- ing problems presented at least <some difficulty= for them prior to the fires, that number jumped to 55 percent after the fires. <They were still sick because they were breathing in heavy metals and other contaminants stirred up by wind from the buildings that burned, but that9s not being tested for or accounted for,= Rau said, noting that current air quality monitors do not capture heavy metals. <So residents are controlling what they think they can control 4 water 4 but they9re actu- ally suffering from what they can9t control.= More than 700 families lost their homes, but one year after the fire, only 13 percent of displaced households man- aged by the Santiam Service Integration Team, which provides case management for residents and links them with resources, had entered permanent re-housing. The remaining 87 percent were still in temporary housing, such as hotels, RVs or couch- surfing. Others may have left the area entirely. One Canyon resident said in a focus group interview, <The way I describe it is I feel like I9ve been erased & I just look around where I9m staying now, and I just feel like my whole life has been erased. Because I can9t go back and tell any stories about where this came from, and this belonged to your great-grandmother, and you know, so what happened to my life? It9s gone.= The lack of permanent housing ripples into every corner of people9s lives, said principal investigator Marc Braverman, a professor and Extension research and eval- uation specialist in OSU9s College of Public Health and Human Sciences. For exam- ple, the limited space in RVs makes it hard for people to cook healthy meals or find ways to exercise. And while it9s important to ensure that building per- mits are not granted for sub- standard housing, Braverman says residents need some form of relief from the bureaucracy and paperwork as they try to construct new homes. <It9s literally a roller coaster that you have to live 15 times over. Because each agency wants verification,= a focus group participant said. <And I mean, you give up. You give up after the fourth time.= On top of paperwork chal- lenges, many residents can- not secure housing appraisals because the fires destroyed all the nearby homes that might have served as <com- parables.= And in the year since the 2020 fires, con- struction costs rose roughly 25 percent, and many resi- dents9 home insurance poli- cies do not cover costly items like wells or septic systems. The report9s authors include several key recom- mendations for address- ing these issues, including streamlining paperwork when possible, addressing the shortage of mental health providers in the area, creating a health registry to track sur- vivors, and establishing more concrete emergency response plans for future disasters. PHOTO PROVIDED The legacy of the devastating fires of 2020 lingers. <We need to be prepared to support the people who are most vulnerable, espe- cially in rural communities in Oregon,= Rau said. <Having services set up in advance for people to go for sup- port for trauma, so they can get healed emotionally to be able to deal with the recov- ery process and life after the fire.= The final coauthor on the report was OSU public health graduate student Elijah Penner. Sisters Dental WE ARE HERE FOR YOU! Trevor Frideres, D . M . D . Greg Everson, D . M . D . Kellie Kawasaki, D . M . D . 541-549-2011 491 E. 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