We need to get smarter before the next major disaster.
My wife Janet and I voluntarily evacuated our house in Santa Rosa, California, at 4 a.m. on October 10. We live just outside a mandatory evacuation zone, but we opted to retreat from the wildfires raging nearby when we saw a bright orange glow on the horizon and a billowing plume of black smoke—both apparently headed our way. That morning, we bundled our four sleepy hens into the back of our car and drove to the closest evacuation shelter.
We were able to return home late that same day. Nothing in our house was damaged, though electricity, gas, internet, and phone service was out; these services gradually returned over the course of the week. Air quality remained horrible until a light rain fell on October 19. Still, we were among the fortunate ones: Nineteen residents of Santa Rosa lost their lives (the death toll throughout the region stands at over 40) and hundreds—including many of our friends and co-workers—lost homes and belongings.
As I’ve continued to reflect on these experiences, I’ve also drawn from my work at Post Carbon Institute to compile this list of things people in any neighborhood ought to be thinking about before disaster strikes.
1. It can happen here.
Wherever you are, you are vulnerable to disaster. In Santa Rosa, over-growth of grasses and shrubs following last winter’s historically abundant rains set the stage for devastating wildfires consuming tens of thousands of acres. For civilization as a whole, overgrowth of population and economic activity during the last century has set us all up, if not for fires, then for many kinds of “corrections,” as stock market analysts call them. We are depleting non-renewable resources at ever-increasing rates, consuming renewable resources faster than they can regenerate, polluting air and water to the point that the oceans may be functionally dead by mid-century, and driving other species to extinction at a thousand times the “normal” rate. As a result, we can look forward to disasters connected to climate change—including fires, droughts, abnormal rain events, catastrophic winds, storm surges, and more—as well as economic, financial, energy, and social emergencies. In addition to rapid-onset crises, we should also anticipate gradual-onset failures in societal and ecological support systems, such as species extinctions resulting in loss of pollination services or overfishing driving a decline in the availability of certain seafoods. In some cases, we’re already seeing these things happen.
The fires in Sonoma County came during a season that also saw hurricanes hit Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and (remarkably) Ireland. Many people are asking if one disaster following closely on the heels of another is our “new normal.” Well, yes, sort of—except that the pace is likely to continue increasing, and individual disasters are likely to worsen in intensity and broaden in scope. Keep in mind that the climate change impacts we’re experiencing now result from only 1 degree Celsius of warming. Planetary warming is slated to more than double, even if we stop burning all fossil fuels tomorrow.
2. Human relationships are our most important resource.
Janet and I invested in solar electricity, battery backup, and solar hot water nearly 20 years ago. But when the fires came, we learned that even self-sufficient systems sometimes fail. After grid power was restored to our neighborhood, electricity in our house kept going out. I’m no engineer, and was flummoxed when trying to troubleshoot our system. Our installer went out of business years ago and I was unable to reach any electrician familiar with grid-tied battery backup systems.
Read more at: https://www.citylab.com/enviro...ia-wildfires/544679/
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