Judy Lychner Teller had little to be thankful for yesterday, after losing her sister-in-law and two nieces in the crash of TWA Flight 800.

But as horrible as the past two days have been, she said she was grateful for the team of counselors at the Ramada Inn near Kennedy Airport.

An emergency vehicle races past a Red Cross post in East Moriches. (Newsday / Audrey C. Tiernan)

"The counselors were phenomenal," said Teller, who is from the Houston area. "They do our laundry. They ran our errands. They cried with us. They hugged us. They do everything anyone could ask."

That's the idea, said Amy Zweiman, one of about 50 mental health workers from the American Red Cross and the American Psychological Association at the hotel. Others counseled rescue workers near the crash site.

"We are there to be there for them, to listen, to talk, to cry to, to verbalize the frustration," Zweiman said. Even carrying suitcases and finding telephones gives relatives the sense that they are not alone in a bleak world.

Most family members are still dealing with the shock of the crash, mental health experts said. The process of grieving likely will be delayed not only by the suddenness of their loved ones' deaths, but by the public nature of it.

Rescue workers, exposed for days to hideous carnage and the poignant debris of human life, have other concerns. In the adrenalized rush of rescue work, emotions are set aside, but they can return with powerful force weeks or even years later, experts said.

The best way to short-circuit problems caused by post-traumatic stress disorder - anxiety, anger, depression - is to talk, said Sadie Hofstein, executive director of the Nassau Mental Health Association. A good counselor will emphasize the importance of the work rescuers just did, and then encourage them to talk.

"If you internalize your anguish, it's going to come out in strange ways,'' said Hofstein, who has been involved in crisis counseling efforts ranging from the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to the Long Island Rail Road massacre.

This is not easy work, even for professionals. Alan Meisel, a psychiatrist at Central Islip Psychiatric Center, said he was nervous about counseling the families because he had never been in a situation like this before. Indeed, Martin Stecher, the medical director at Central Islip, said he expected to break down and cry after speaking to the families. "You hear people baring their souls,'' Stecher said. "It will be hard to maintain any semblance of control. You'll want to sit down and hug them and cry with them.''

Counseling is available for counselors, too, Zweiman said.

Mae Cheng, Craig Gordon, Isaac Guzman and Andrew Smith contributed to this story.