Years ago a writer Donna Britt wrote a column about catching herself searching for details in a crime story to explain why this wouldn't happen to her children.
Asheville, North Carolina, a town I have had the pleasure to visit once, and hope to visit again, was listed as a climate proof place to move in an article recently. And then, well, hurricane Helene dumped about thirty inches of rain on it and it's surrounding areas, and it turns out being on a mountain doesn't save you from that.
We all want to believe we are safe from that thing. This summer I was standing at a bus stop when I got a tornado warning on my phone. I was pretty sure being at a bus stop was not where one should be in a tornado, but walking back home was going to take longer than waiting for the bus, so I stayed put and really hoped I wasn't going to end up on the news.
When DC had that earthquake a while back, some office buildings evacuated. They - some of them at least - later advised employees that that was the wrong protocol.
We all need to figure out what happens if it floods, what happens if there's no water for a while, no power. September is actually, National Preparedness Month here in the US. That's not a funny coincidence, it's actually because about now is when a lot of the big storms hit. Whether you live where they are called typhoons or tropical cyclones or hurricanes, climate change is bringing bigger, better, stronger storms. Oh and fires too. Fires.
While I joke that if we could just construct a little series of levers and pipes, so that any time there was too much water somewhere, we could move it elsewhere, the actual plan is multi-pronged. We need to figure out our go plans. Our shelter in place plans. And we need to work on everything we can so climate change doesn't get even worse.
