West Coast residents struggle with psychological burden of repeated evacuations as wildfire seasons worsen

“And so, we've got these recurrent wildfires or hurricanes in the Atlantic, and they are not only occurring during a pandemic, they're actually interacting with the pandemic.”Taylor believes that natural disasters that are increasing in severity, frequency and unpredictability will have serious impacts on people's mental health issues and that authorities must factor mental health resources in to their crisis response plans.“You can use the data out there to map regions that are most vulnerable to mental health problems and the other regions that are likely to be most hardest hit by climate change,” Taylor said. Communities coming together amid a crisis can not only help each other cope through the loss and fear, but also mobilize to create changes that reduce carbon footprints.Anxious passivity will only compound an issue that “no single person can address,” Taylor said.“Which, we've seen this during the pandemic where people are realizing, ‘oh, if we join together as a community and help one another, the burden seems lessened,’” Taylor said.Jamie Thrower grew up in Sonoma County, which was hit hard by the 2017 Tubbs Fire and again this fall with the Glass Fire.