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• New group's mission is to help community heal

OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING, APRIL 19, 1995: A truck bomb designed by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols kills 168 people in a federal office building.

COLUMBINE SHOOTINGS, APRIL 20, 1999: Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris kill 15 and wound at least 24 others before committing suicide.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: Terrorists linked to al-Qaida crash jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing about 3,066.

VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTINGS, APRIL 16, 2007: The worst school shooting in U.S. history leaves 33 dead, including gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

Like a boomerang, pain can be tossed away for a time.

Eventually, it returns.

If history is any guide, we are a community at risk: tired, angry, fearful, emotionally numb.

We are fragile.

But the poet says we are Virginia Tech: We will prevail, we will prevail.

Nikki Giovanni's words quelled the pain for a while, offered us comfort, gave us hope.

But in the background, among mental health workers, hangs a nagging worry -- about the boomerang.

"I find it very interesting that so much of the population not affiliated in any way with mental health think the tragedy is over," said Amy Forsyth-Stephens, director of the Mental Health Association of the New River Valley.

"For us, it's almost like the tragedy hasn't even begun."

When a gunman killed 33 people, including himself, in the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech, his rampage wounded more than the dozens who survived with bullet wounds, broken bones and broken hearts. It wounded the psyche of the Hokie Nation.

Forsyth-Stephens, like some other mental health professionals in the region, has studied the "boomerang effect" of mass violence on other communities, and the conclusions are disturbing. In the next year or two, according to experts, Virginia Tech and the surrounding communities can expect a surge in problems ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to alcohol and drug abuse.

"It goes beyond people who worked at Norris Hall," Forsyth-Stephens said. "It's our community's tragedy as well."

To understand her point, turn back to April 19, 1995.

The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City left more than 850 people injured and 168 dead, including 19 children. Thirty children were orphaned, and 219 lost one parent. An estimated 387,00 people, one-third of the city's population, knew someone who was killed or injured.

Police and rescue responders were hard-hit. Of the 12,984 workers and volunteers who assisted in the crisis, one nurse died and 85 responders were injured. Three years after the bombing, the divorce rate among firefighters was up 300 percent. Police personnel saw a 25 percent to 30 percent increase in divorce. Five rescue workers committed suicide.

The Oklahoma State Department of Health estimated the long-term medical costs related to the bombing at $5.7 million. Property loss accounted for at least $625 million, and the total cost to improve security in federal buildings nationwide in response to the bombing was more than $600 million.

Larry Gross, executive director of the Central Oklahoma Community Mental Health Center, said the facts speak for themselves.

"These are very stressful times for people," he said. "This notion of everything returns to normal isn't true. It rocks our reality.

"What does being over it mean?" he asks. "That does not have any meaning for me whatsoever. I will carry Oklahoma City in my mind and heart forever till the day I die."

Turn back to Sept. 11, 2001.

The New York Times estimated the final count of the dead following the al-Qaida terrorist attacks at 3,066, including the 19 hijackers responsible for the mass killings. The number of orphans created by the attacks was 1,300. The number of jobs lost in lower Manhattan alone was 100,000.

After 9/11, post-traumatic stress disorder increased 200 percent among New Yorkers in Manhattan. Alcohol consumption jumped by 25 percent. Cigarette smoking increased by 10 percent.

For many, faith became a refuge. Church and synagogue attendance rose by 10 percent.

The price of the tragedy, merely in terms of property losses and insurance costs, is predicted to exceed $21 billion.

The events of April 16 in Blacksburg may not compare numerically with the disasters of Sept. 11, 2001, and April 19, 1995. But the impact of the Virginia Tech shootings on the New River Valley's close-knit community, according to Forsyth-Stephens, will be profound.

"In our disaster, the health and safety component was over quickly. What we were left with was a mental health disaster of massive proportion," she said. "I think for the majority of people who live in the New River Valley, it was a life-altering event."

Ironically, the intimacy of the town-gown community -- where residents share a strong connection with a university represented by people from all over the world -- is the thing that will hurt us.

Even our intimacy with the killer will hurt us, according to Forsyth-Stephens.

Seung-Hui Cho may have acted like an "outsider," but he was a part of Blacksburg, she said.

"He was one of ours. He shopped with us ... he drove around town. It creates a sense of vulnerability," she said.

The response to that vulnerability is what concerns Forsyth-Stephens and others in the mental health profession.

"It feels like a lull now, but it's coming. It's brewing," said Harvey Barker, director of emergency and adult clinical services at New River Valley Community Services. "Sixty-one percent of the Oklahoma City community were impacted a year after the bombing."

"And what happened after Columbine was absolutely horrible," added Kymn Davidson-Hamley, director for United Way of Montgomery, Radford & Floyd. "There were three suicides and two homicides the year after. We don't want to see that happen in our community. We don't want to see that. There was not enough information about communitywide healing."

Indeed, if we turn back to April 20, 1999, the situation seems analogous.

Littleton, Colo. Population just over 40,000.

Columbine High School: 15 dead, 24 wounded, unknown number still suffering.

"I have staff members going through post-traumatic stress eight years later," said Frank DeAngelo, still the principal at the school where two students carried out a massacre that was, until April 16, the deadliest school shooting in history.

"You don't know when it's going to hit and it's overwhelming when it does," DeAngelo said of the mental backlash caused by such trauma.

How, then, will the Hokie Nation prevail?

How will a community heal its wounded psyche, especially given the stigma that inevitably accompanies any reference to mental illness?

"Someone told me it's a marathon, not a sprint," DeAngelo said. "It's not going to happen overnight. Not everyone is at the same place. When I realized that, it helped a lot."

The stress of what happened April 16 "will peak in 12 to 24 months," Forsyth-Stephens predicted. "People are impacted, but they don't seek assistance until the impact they have felt begins to damage their lives. They won't call and say, 'I haven't been myself since April 16.' They're going to call and say, 'I'm drinking too much. I'm about to lose my temper. I can't sleep.' "

Statistical sources: Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, The New York Times, The Observer, Journal of the American Medical Association, Oklahoma State Department of Health.