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Stage one is shock, stage two is denial, next there's grief and then come the tears -- that's when recovery can begin.

"In a disaster there's always loss," said Ann Patterson, a licensed psychotherapist and mental health specialist for the Roanoke Valley American Red Cross Disaster Action Team.

Patterson aids clients in dealing with the trauma of losing their homes or loved ones to disasters. Oftentimes she takes her clients through the four stages of recovering from a trauma. Tears, she said, are always an indication of a release of anger.

"Tell me what happened," Patterson tells them. "I want to know every gory detail."

Some stay quiet, others hold the grief in. But Patterson said she always persists. How can they not cry after they've lost their homes and everything they own in a fire, or when their husbands have been swept away by a mudslide, she asks.

"The fact that somebody lost everything is a major trauma," she said. "It's OK to cry. I encourage them to cry."

She even cries with them.

"When you look and see people looking for their husbands, aunts, uncles, it gets to you," she said.

Patterson, 81, is the oldest member of the team. Her career in clinical social work and psychotherapy spans six decades beginning in the 1940s. She dropped out of high school before graduating but was accepted by Hampton University. She said it was the first step in what she called a lifelong education that would take her to graduate school at Howard University in Washington D.C.; Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland; and the University of Munich in Germany. She said she was the 109th person in the state of California to become a licensed clinical social worker. She eventually started her own therapy practice and was the head of a psychiatric ward at the Veterans Medical Center Hospital in Sepulveda, Calif.

"It was the height of my ambition," she said.

Patterson doesn't believe in retirement. She continues to do volunteer work and psychiatric consultation. Her 60 years of clinical social work make her the DAT's most valued member, according to its captain, Kathy Collins.

Collins said that along with her experience, Patterson's unique and vivacious personality is a major asset to the team and something you wouldn't expect from a woman her age.

"She's a fireball," Collins said. "She never wants to be still."

Patterson and Collins often work side by side during disaster calls. Patterson's experience in mental health means that other team members can focus on victims' other needs.

"While the caseworkers work with the clients to find out what the American Red Cross can do to meet their immediate emergency needs, Ann is caring for the mental health issues that arise after a disaster," Collins said.

Patterson said she doesn't spend all of her time working. She does yoga, vacations at spas in Mexico and manages to take a strip-dancing class every so often. She believes that she and her fellow DAT members shouldn't spend their retirement idly. She said their work regimen offers new challenges to keep them young and active.

"I think it says we got to keep moving," she said. "Personally, I'm afraid to stop. I might not be able to get back up."