After catastrophe, lessons from lives rebuilt

The couple also devised an emergency plan. They staged fire drills so the children would know what to do. They also store canned food, bottled water, and powdered milk in a basement room. Other emergency supplies include three sets of clothes per person, a camp stove, candles, and oil lanterns.

Despite all their preparedness, they maintain a normal life. "I'm kind of easygoing," says Halderman, a nurse manager at a retirement center in Cleveland. "My whole philosophy is, live for the day. Always tell people that you love them."

Jim March's life - and perspective - changed forever at 4 p.m. on a July afternoon in 1992, when a tornado hit Westminster, Md. His two sons, ages 4 months and 23 months, were napping upstairs. The roof blew off, and the upstairs walls collapsed. The children were thrown into the yard - unhurt.

"I always think of things pre-tornado and post-tornado," says Mr. March, a federal administrative law judge. "None of the material things really mattered once we found out that the children were fine. The stuff is replaceable."

The family rebuilt the house on the same foundation. Even after they moved back in, though, tornado-related details consumed their time.

"It was a good year or so that this was really affecting my life," March says, noting that they lost many documents. "It is an arduous process, trying to think of everything you had."

To keep track of possessions, Ron Cuccaro, CEO of Adjusters International, recommends taking photos of a house and its contents. "Pictures are more valuable than an inventory," he says. Insurance companies want proof of what you've lost. He keeps a set of photos at work.

He has another piece of advice: Insure your home for its replacement cost, not just the depreciated value.

Adequate insurance helped Sandra Millers Younger and her husband start over after the Cedar Fire in San Diego on Oct. 25, 2003. It was the biggest wildfire in recorded California history. It destroyed 2,400 homes with 15 fatalities, 12 in Wildcat Canyon, where they live.

The couple had little warning. As the fire approached, they threw pictures and negatives into a laundry basket, grabbed their bird and two dogs, and drove through curtains of flame and smoke.

When they returned, their two-story house was a pile of ashes and buckled metal. Nothing was salvageable.

They'd lost everything "except our car, our animals, things at our offices, and clothes at the dry cleaners," Mrs. Younger says. "But we had loving family and friends who came out of the woodwork to help us. It was really humbling."

Two months ago, they finally moved back into their rebuilt house. "It's just a long process," Younger says.

"One of the things you learn when you lose everything is you don't need as much as you thought you did," she says. "You learn that you are not your stuff."

They'd always stored their most important papers in a safe deposit box. Now they have centralized the things that are important. "What's really important? The pictures, the pictures, the pictures. Little mementos that your kids have given you over the years. Gifts you've given each other. That's all people care about."

Younger concludes that "you wouldn't wish this on anyone, and you can't ever say you're glad it happened. But if you're open to it, there is opportunity even in tragedy. It's an opportunity to look at life in a different way and be grateful for what you may have taken for granted. The best first step you can take toward recovery is being grateful for what you have instead of being bitter for what you lost."

Page: 1 | 2