Government

County Employee Reaches Out to Help Texas Fire Survivors

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Deena Raver of the County Department of General Services recently spent a jam-packed weekend helping provide fire survivors in Bastrop County, Texas with help, hope, guidance and rebuilding expertise.

It meant hotel rooms, long hours and lots of stories from devastated people, but Raver, who spent years with the County helping local fire survivors jumped at the chance.

“I’m so glad I went,” Raver said of her three day trip just before Thanksgiving, “I’m exhausted; I didn’t sleep because we were going 24 hours a day. But everywhere we went they were so grateful.”

Raver is currently a project manager/grant administrator with General Services. But after the 2003 and 2007 firestorms Raver was the Fire Rebuild Liaison with the Department of Planning and Land Use (DPLU) and worked tirelessly with other DPLU personnel to help local fire survivors navigate a rebuilding process that still continues. San Diego County has long been a leader in the areas of disaster preparedness and response, but living through two devastating firestorms that destroyed more than 4,300 homes within four years has also given it an expertise in rebuilding and recovery.

So it was not surprising when Bastrop County leaders looked to San Diego after wildfires destroyed 1,500 homes there in September.

Reporters from the Austin American Statesman, one of Texas’s major metropolitan newspapers, flew to San Diego, interviewed fire survivors, Raver, DPLU, and citizens who helped organize community recovery teams, and wrote several articles about how recovery played out here — including one about how the County’s decision to improve building codes after the 2003 fires helped reduce damage in 2007.

And when the Bastrop County chamber of commerce and business leaders arranged a special rebuilding “expo” Nov. 19, they invited Raver to be a keynote speaker. Raver was joined on the trip by Robin Clegg, a Lakeside resident who helped establish the San Diego Firestorm Community Recovery Team who also spoke at the expo, and Bonnie, a Ramona resident who created and managed the Ramona Fire Recovery Center.

After arriving Thursday night, Raver and the group spent Friday touring fire sites, talking to survivors and media, and taking part in a public presentation with Bastrop County commissioners (their equivalent of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors). Saturday was taken up by the day-long exposition.

Raver said she was shocked to discover that Bastrop County doesn’t require homeowners and builders to have building plans checked or inspections done — a process that typically ensures houses are built safely to code and protects homeowners from danger. In addition, Raver said, contractors do not have to apply for licenses, a situation that can leave homeowners vulnerable to unskilled or fraudulent contractors, especially in disaster recoveries.

However, Raver said she was able to suggest that Bastrop fire survivors screen builders by using their Better Business Bureau to check if contractors had complaints lodged against them.

Raver said her main messages to survivors in Bastrop County was to remember rebuilding was a long process, that they needed to guard against becoming frustrated, to band together with other fire survivors and rely upon the community resource centers “that will bubble up.” Finally, Raver told survivors that if they started to feel overwhelmed, they needed to give themselves permission to “take a break.”

Gig Conaughton is a communications specialist with the County of San Diego Communications Office. Contact