Which Disaster Zone do you prefer?
That was the question my Beloved asked, not long after Hurricane Maria finished doing the job on Puerto Rico that Irma had left half-finished, and the central Mexico earthquake had leveled significant portions of the region.
His question caught his co-workers by surprise, but--if you think about it--none of us really should be surprised. So, then, what's your answer? Where would you rather live?
You could live in a tropical paradise like Barbuda or Puerto Rico, where a hurricane can level your entire island in a few harrowing hours, or where rising sea levels threaten to swamp your home, your livelihood, and your most beloved scenic areas.
You could live in a mountainous region with breathtakingly gorgeous peaks, cliff faces that shear off without warning, enormous swaths of drought-parched forests that one careless cigarette butt or lightning-strike can ignite into an inferno that changes the weather and denudes stabilizing plant growth so you get buried in mudslides the next time it rains real hard. (The video that follows is from fires in 2015 but it's representative.)
You could live in an earthquake zone, where grandfathered-in or shoddily-constructed buildings (or buildings on unstable ground) could collapse on you in seconds, and destroyed infrastructure may very well leave you with no water, no power, impassable roads, and leaking natural gas.
You could live within range of a volcano that could turn your neighborhood into a "lunar landscape" of ash and death. I'm looking at you, Ring of Fire--but don't smirk too hard, Plains States: do you know what lies beneath Yellowstone National Park?
You could live, as I do, in "Tornado Alley," where extremes of weather created by our position in the middle of a large continent spawn violent storms during much of the year, and extremes of politics create danger from poorly-regulated toxic materials (think about Picher, OK, or Times Beach, MO), and many other insidious hazards (unfortunately, the NAACP's travel advisory on Missouri seems all too reasonable, to this Missouri native). To be fair, though, none of the US is all that safe from racism, gun violence, pollution, and crumbling infrastructure.
We can't do much about some of the risks and hazards that surround us every day--but there are other things we can do, from building wisely for the kinds of environmental hazards our area faces (more on that in future posts) to speaking out and working for a cleaner, safer world where every person, no matter how troubled or disadvantaged, is seen as a being of infinite worth.
IMAGES: Many thanks to The Washington Post, for the video of Utuado, Puerto Rico's situation after Hurricane Maria. I deeply appreciate climber Peter Zabrock's photo (via the Associated Press) and The San Francisco Chronicle for the vision of the rockslide on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, and CBS This Morning for the video of the 2015 fires in the San Bernardino area of California. The amazing before-and-after photos from Mexico city, published by The New York Times, are part of a larger article, featuring many more photos. Many thanks to Amusing Planet's article, "The Lava Trees of Hawaii," for the arresting post-eruption image of what used to be a forest. The photo of a ruin in Times Beach, MO, is from a Danish Pinterest board, "Udforsk disse idéer og meget mere!" (Explore these ideas and more).
That was the question my Beloved asked, not long after Hurricane Maria finished doing the job on Puerto Rico that Irma had left half-finished, and the central Mexico earthquake had leveled significant portions of the region.
His question caught his co-workers by surprise, but--if you think about it--none of us really should be surprised. So, then, what's your answer? Where would you rather live?
You could live in a tropical paradise like Barbuda or Puerto Rico, where a hurricane can level your entire island in a few harrowing hours, or where rising sea levels threaten to swamp your home, your livelihood, and your most beloved scenic areas.
 |
| Photo of El Capitan rock slide by climber Peter Zabrock. |
You could live in a mountainous region with breathtakingly gorgeous peaks, cliff faces that shear off without warning, enormous swaths of drought-parched forests that one careless cigarette butt or lightning-strike can ignite into an inferno that changes the weather and denudes stabilizing plant growth so you get buried in mudslides the next time it rains real hard. (The video that follows is from fires in 2015 but it's representative.)
You could live in an earthquake zone, where grandfathered-in or shoddily-constructed buildings (or buildings on unstable ground) could collapse on you in seconds, and destroyed infrastructure may very well leave you with no water, no power, impassable roads, and leaking natural gas.
 |
| For more amazing before-and-after Mexico City photos from The New York Times please click the link for the entire article. |
You could live within range of a volcano that could turn your neighborhood into a "lunar landscape" of ash and death. I'm looking at you, Ring of Fire--but don't smirk too hard, Plains States: do you know what lies beneath Yellowstone National Park?
 |
| Lava trees--actually the places where trees once stood--after a Hawaiian volcanic eruption. |
You could live, as I do, in "Tornado Alley," where extremes of weather created by our position in the middle of a large continent spawn violent storms during much of the year, and extremes of politics create danger from poorly-regulated toxic materials (think about Picher, OK, or Times Beach, MO), and many other insidious hazards (unfortunately, the NAACP's travel advisory on Missouri seems all too reasonable, to this Missouri native). To be fair, though, none of the US is all that safe from racism, gun violence, pollution, and crumbling infrastructure.
 |
| An abandoned home in Times Beach, MO. |
We can't do much about some of the risks and hazards that surround us every day--but there are other things we can do, from building wisely for the kinds of environmental hazards our area faces (more on that in future posts) to speaking out and working for a cleaner, safer world where every person, no matter how troubled or disadvantaged, is seen as a being of infinite worth.
IMAGES: Many thanks to The Washington Post, for the video of Utuado, Puerto Rico's situation after Hurricane Maria. I deeply appreciate climber Peter Zabrock's photo (via the Associated Press) and The San Francisco Chronicle for the vision of the rockslide on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, and CBS This Morning for the video of the 2015 fires in the San Bernardino area of California. The amazing before-and-after photos from Mexico city, published by The New York Times, are part of a larger article, featuring many more photos. Many thanks to Amusing Planet's article, "The Lava Trees of Hawaii," for the arresting post-eruption image of what used to be a forest. The photo of a ruin in Times Beach, MO, is from a Danish Pinterest board, "Udforsk disse idéer og meget mere!" (Explore these ideas and more).
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