Living with Disaster

An orange ribbon for the 2017 Sonoma County fire victims in Downtown Novato.

Being Californians, we are always in proximity to disaster, if not on its front lines. 

We grow up knowing that the plates beneath us will shift and shake us and El Ninos will bring us floods and landslides. Now, we are becoming aware that hurricane force winds can and eventually will sweep flames into our neighborhoods. In my experience in emergency response training, I have seen the shift from earthquake preparation towards fire storm preparation. 

Recently, to prevent these fires, communities in California had to live with 3-6 days without power. Many places that did not turn off power had a fire breakout.

The loss of power was nothing compared to the loss of life and homes of the massive fires that we have seen in recent years, but it was tough on a lot of people who were not prepared. Those of us who thought we were prepared found out that we still needed to do more preparation. We thought about the things we did have during the power outage that we may not have during a major earthquake and it was a wake up call. 

This blog is inspired by a lot of things. I am a weather nerd and an emergency preparation nerd, and I have always wanted to write a blog about at least emergency preparedness. After this last fire season (which isn't quite finished in November), I have been discussing these threats and solutions online on Facebook and NextDoor. Ideas and discussions tend to get lost to the ether on Social Media. So I wanted to store a lot of the lessons we learned here.  Instead of having to repeat myself, I can just point people here. 

I want to dedicate this blog to the victims and first responders of the Tubbs, Atlas, Nuns, Redwood Valley (Mendocino) Complex, Cascade, Sulfur, 37, Canyon 2, Thomas, Creek, Rye, Lilac, Ranch, Camp, Carr, Woolsey, Getty, Hillside, Tick, Kincade, Saddleridge, Sandlewood, and Walker fires.