Embrace the automatic compassion response

Connecting with all the people that are alive

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com


I have always lived locally, but at times, think globally. Every now and then, in this world that can isolate us from other forms of human kindness, we need to embrace the automatic compassion response that usually kicks in for a country beset by tragedy, disaster and discord.

“There’s been so much ugliness, division and fear on our screens and in our hearts over the past two years that it was getting hard to imagine how we’d ever stitch the country together again.,” notes Time magazine columnist Susanna Schrobsdorff. “Then a once-in-a-thousand year storm hit.” Referring to Harvey. And the acts of kindness followed.

“They are a reminder of something we feared extinct: that aspect of America that brims with compassion -- the kind that doesn’t discriminate.”

Locally, we have seen folks come together in trying times. Think only of the firestorms of Waldo Canyon, Black Forest, and even Hayman, the flooding and destruction of Fountain Creek in the Ute Pass, Manitou Springs, and along Colorado Highway 67, and out in the burn areas in the forest.

But remember as well, the response, the compassion and the humanity shown as local folks and others rose to the occasion. And are still rising, because there are still things to do.

The fire in Cripple Creek last week that left folks without. Anything. Earlier disasters, large and small, here close to home and abroad, we have suffered through.

Born of floods, following fires, one local organization philosophically and metaphorically, has held up like a three-legged table, the Coalition for the Upper South Platte (or CUSP), now serves as a model, and has for years ... statewide, nationally and internationally.

Through the three legs: economic sustainability, community values, and cooperative efforts of the stakeholders; CUSP seeks to protect the water quality and ecological health of the Upper South Platte Watershed, that began after the Buffalo Creek Fire and Flood (which did more than $35 million in damage resulted in two deaths) in Jefferson County 1996.

Black Forest Together (BFT), an organization formed about four years ago, also has a three-pronged strategy of compassion: recover, rebuild, restore.

It will likely be sponsoring its Annual Fundraising Event in October, at the Black Forest Community Club (NW corner of Shoup Rd & Black Forest Rd). The event commonly includes a BBQ dinner, activities for the kids and music.

The purpose of the fundraiser is to raise operating capital to pay the expenses related to BFT’s community projects of recovery, mitigation, preservation, preparedness, and education. In order to hold a successful fundraiser, they need a number of volunteers to assist with the event, serving food, setting up and cleaning up and other tasks. If you have any questions, about that effort, please call the office at 495-2445.

In the meantime, if you need help, Do you have trees blown over from our recent storms? Burned property still requiring cleanup? Out of control slash you need help with? If so, Black Forest Together (BFT) is taking applications for this season’s projects. Project focus will be continued post-fire cleanup/restoration and mitigation to reduce the risk of another wildfire. Although they don’t have the capability to cut down trees, we can help with chipping, slash piling, cleanup of debris, seedling planting and other restoration work and offer neighborhood chipping projects.

Certainly other local organizations (too numerous to name) share in that uplifting effort.

The fires in Montana, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado are everyday reminders of the need for vigilance, and the truth that we may one day need help again. The recent national tragedies in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands drive that message home.

Empathy is an important and motivating response for us. Perhaps pain and heartbreak are all part of the human condition, and such suffering might seem unprecedented, but at the same time, as James Baldwin suggests, it connects us with all the people who are alive -- all the people who have ever been alive.

Photo information:
1. Fighting the Black Forest Fire in the first few days of July, 2013.
2. Coalition for the Upper South Platte with a winter-time controlled burn in 2015.

Rebuilding after the fire changes a person

'Yes, there are views. But the trees were special.'

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Something like this changes you.
"Your whole life is gone. Even after you rebuild, the place is sterile, no photos left, no old clothes, no familiar jacket, or hat. Landmarks are gone. Just a lot of ash."
Bill Mantia, board vice president for Black Forest Together, Inc. knows this, perhaps as well as anyone.
"Once you go through something like the Black Forest Fire, and the rebuilding process. You are not normal," he says with authority.
Just about every tree, his two houses, fences, barns, clothes, all belongings — everything 40 acres can hold, disappeared that day in June, nearly two years ago.
Since then, it has been neighbor helping neighbor. Red Cross and insurance, tracking down mail, and dealing with the planning department, jumping through hoops with the phone company, and chipping trees, and preventing flooding.
There is stress, anxiety, depression. But in Mantia's mind, there is no use playing the blame game.
"Everybody did the best they could, under the conditions."
And rebuilding jumps forth, in fits and starts.
He and his wife deadpan jokes about their new wardrobe every now and then.
"Is that new?" he asks, knowing full well that don't have anything to wear that isn't. Everything turned to ash.
On the insurance front, even the well-insured probably have to come up with another 20 percent or so. The battle continues. Neighbor still help neighbors. The work and the rebuilding process goes on. Stumps, and blackened trees, unchecked stream flow, erosion, and sprouting vegetation.
Help still arrives, and friends are still a comfort.
Once a grove of trees, opens now, as a meadow with a view.
"Yes, there are views. But the trees were special," Mantia says wistfully.

Photo info:


1. Black Forest Together board vice president Bill Mantia points out the direction the fire traveled over his own property during an explanatory caravan tour, discussing lessons learned from the Black Forest fire.

2.  Bill Mantia lost his own home in the fire and still is working hard every day to recover from the effects.



3. After the fire, came problems with flooding and this homeowner tries to slow down the devastating effects of unchecked runoff water.