High water everywhere

I realize the View From Fort Miley has been quiet lately. Seems I returned from my week on the Cape with a little cough, which turned into a mysterious exhaustion, which then produced a fever, which was diagnosed as pneumonia when I finally made it to the hospital. I suppose I'd been burning it at both ends, or maybe just spending a little too much time on airplanes.

The illness coincided with one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. I spent a lot of couch time watching the sad footage roll in from New Orleans. I feel lucky that I saw this magnificent city, if only for a few days, before this tragedy unfolded. The destruction, loss of life and misery are mindblowing and heartbreaking. Yes, the disaster response was slow, and yes, projects that could have mitigated the disaster went without funding. I have heard noted scientist Rush Limbaugh claim that "nothing happened" in New Orleans (as of Monday morning), and that "doom-and-gloom sayers" were wringing their hands inappropriately by saying floods were possible, and that warm water in the Atlantic would actually produce fewer hurricanes rather than more, and that since Hurricane Camille (1969) was bigger than Katrina that must mean global warming isn't happening. I don't much want to discuss that today, however. At the risk of sounding self-centered, I'd like to address this as a resident of a city that also lies in harm's way.

The disaster occurred about two weeks after I finished reading Marc Reisner's A Dangerous Place, a fairly slim volume that I consumed in about two days. A Dangerous Place deals with California's natural and human history, and centers on earthquake risks and preparedness. Reisner's Cadillac Desert is quite simply one of the best books I've ever read; it changed the way I live, and changed the way I see the American West. This newer book -- published in 2003, three years after Reisner's death -- is eerily prescient, down to envisioning the current (2005) state of repairs on the Bay Bridge.

Reisner's primary disaster scenario -- a hypothetical 7.3 quake on the Hayward Fault, in February 2005 -- includes fires, collapsed buildings, a bridge failure, car wrecks, and emergency management resources stretched thinly. It culminates in simultaneous failure of several levees in the Sacramento Delta region. Those below-sea-level islands fill with fresh water, producing a vacuum that sucks salt water back into the Delta region, filling the state's aqueducts with sea water. Agriculture in the Central Valley is ruined. Half of Los Angeles's water is ruined. The Bay Area's water supply is ruined when it's most needed. Ugly.

I haven't seen a single SFChron story about local disaster preparedness since this all went down. I get blank looks from a lot of people when I bring it up. A little investigation reveals the city government's emergency operations plan, but I have no way of knowing whether it's adequate. (Something tells me San Francisco is better prepared for an earthquake than New Orleans was for a flood.)

About those blank looks: One person told me he was "so over earthquakes," having grown up here and survived the '89 quake. That person has no canned food on hand, no bottled water sitting around, no flashlight, no batteries. When I brought up the levee-failure scenario, that person said, "You mean the tap water wouldn't even be good if you boil it?" I don't think he gets it.

I mentioned Reisner's book to another person, who simply said, "That's a fun thing to think about." So there you have it: mind over matter. If you don't think about it, it won't happen. I wonder about people sometimes.

Net result: I'm planning to undergo NERT training once I'm well. Seems like the right thing to do.


FMFM: The great Allen Toussaint, who is reportedly safe. [Separately: The Charley Patton song is here.]