It's the nightmare scenario for a person retiring, or just retired.

A bear market - a harsh, lengthy downturn - devours savings just when a person needs to start using the stash. Analysts have been speculating that we could be in such a period, and financial planners have been going over portfolios to make sure clients can weather it.

There is never an opportune time for a bear market, or what typically is defined as at least a 20 percent drop in stocks that continues for months or even years. But working people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and early 50s can frequently handle bear markets because they don't need to tap their savings and can allow shrunken 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts to heal and turn into large sums.

But people in retirement generally don't have the luxury of time. And at the beginning of retirement, they can be the most vulnerable. Retirement plans often are based on the assumption that an initial pot of money will grow somewhat each year and last for perhaps 30 years.

Ideally, before retiring, people examine their savings and determine what they can safely withdraw each month. As a rule of thumb, planners say to plan on removing 4 percent the first year and increasing the amount 3 percent for inflation each year afterward.

Yet a lengthy bear market can slash the original pot from the outset, undermining its power to grow and meet expectations. If the stock market remains down, even at current levels, it could be very damaging.

On average during bear markets, stocks fall 37 percent and then climb with a 47 percent burst within a year after the low point, according to research by the Leuthold Group.

With the mixture of the sweet swings up and the harrowing decline, investors in the full stock market recapture what they've lost within 2 1/2 years, on average. But that's an average. Sometimes it's just a few months, or in the case of the last bear market in 2000 to 2002, stocks took about seven years to recover fully.

Although retirees often become nervous during such periods and wonder if they should flee to safety, William Bengen, an El Cajon, Calif., financial planner, studied the worst stock market periods and found that retirees with 50 percent to 75 percent in stocks ultimately would weather the storms if they withdrew no more than 4 percent of their savings a year.

Still, not every investor can handle the shock of a sharp downturn. And Colorado financial planner Charles Farrell says to prepare now, rather than fleeing stocks altogether if conditions worsen.

The usual message from financial advisers for retirees is to establish a portfolio, maybe half in stocks and half in bonds, and stay with it. But if it will be too much to stomach if the market declines further, Farrell said now is the time to make changes.

He also suggests retirees ask themselves some questions.

Say you have $500,000 saved for retirement. Ask yourself what kind of drop you can handle in dollars. Could you handle a 20 percent drop, to $400,000, adjust your withdrawals from your savings and cover your living expenses with Social Security, a pension or a part-time job? Could you cut back somewhat on expenses?

In addition, Farrell said, investors should focus on their investments as a whole, rather than each fund or stock individually.

For example, if an investor had 55 percent of his money invested in the U.S. stock market and 45 percent in U.S. bond market between Jan. 1, 2000, and the end of January 2008, the portfolio would have gained nearly 35 percent, even though the stock market itself provided almost no gain, said James Tzitzouris Jr., investment analyst on T. Rowe Price's asset-allocation team.

Instead of fleeing the stock market as it declined, T. Rowe Price senior financial planner Christine Fahlund said an investor would have been better off to stay invested but change spending plans.

T. Rowe Price makes projections about savings using what are called Monte Carlo simulations. They feed hundreds of real stock market occurrences, including the best and worst of times, into a computer, and then test portfolios to see if they might run out of money too early in retirement.

As a rule of thumb, they want retirees to be close to 90 percent certain their savings will last.

Using real market events from 2000 to the present and the Monte Carlo calculations for the future of a retiree, Fahlund and Tzitzouris demonstrated the impact of an awful bear market and the preferred course of action.

In early 2000, with a $500,000 portfolio and withdrawals starting at 4 percent a year and increasing 3 percent a year for inflation, retirees with 55 percent invested in stocks and 45 percent in bonds would have been on course to have enough savings to last 30 years. They would have had an 89 percent chance of making their savings last.

But the bear market would have upset the plans if the retiree had ignored the market conditions, Fahlund said.

Within two years, the $500,000 would have shrunk to $374,000. At that point, T. Rowe Price's Monte Carlo calculations show that the person's chances of getting through retirement with enough money dropped to 53 percent. That is considered much too iffy by most financial advisers and investors.

So Fahlund tried some changes that she suggests any wise retiree should apply.

By cutting back spending 25 percent at the bottom of the bear market in 2002, investors prepared themselves to recover quickly from the stock market's downturn, she said.

If an individual had done this, Fahlund said, the person would have rebuilt savings through the improving stock market. By January of this year, the person would be back on target, with an 89 percent chance of having money for a full 30 years of retirement.

And with the portfolio back on course, Fahlund said, the retirees were free to start taking larger withdrawals.

To try the Monte Carlo simulation with your money, go to www3.troweprice.com/ric/RIC/.

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