I asked the store clerk how he survived the storm. “Power was out for three days. Three trees fell and blocked our access to the party. Drove up to Livermore from San Luis Obispo. We should have stayed home.”
Sunday’s hard hitting bomb cyclone was reprising its 2023 role when last year a similarly intense storm clobbered the state.
Checking into this campground near Avila Beach just north of Pismo Beach last night. I asked the receptionist how things had gone here. “The hill to the south of us blocked the worst of the wind, we were lucky.”
Eucalyptus trees in midst of Sunday’s windy deluge became a menacing towering mob boss hit men. Limbs of trees fell and scattered. Nine people have died from this week, three of the fatalities were due to tree falls.
NWS reported the storms low barometric pressure fed the high wind event. This pinwheeling eye of the storm reached south and west and dragged warmer and wetter moisture over the state.
Experts calculate that 11 trillion gallons of water fell on Southern California, that is more water than is stored in Lake Mead. The firehose of lies metaphor now includes the firehose of atmospheric rivers.
The remnants of the storm still linger here in Santa Barbara. Creeks have receded, storefronts still have sandbags remain in place. The rain is gone for now, but this all or nothing precipitation pattern is the new climate hazard out here on the West Coast.
I’m walking on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara. People don’t appear shocked, shock is not how we cope with a climate emergency, what we say and do is dwarfed by the magnitude of the challenge, this is a global climate shift that like it or not is going to impact the fate of life on earth.
In Northern California a wind instrument on the San Francisco Bay recorded a 102-mph gust. I was located about 20 miles east. The freight train like sound of the wind screaming through the trees on the hillside above our home unsettled the minds of those of us living nearby. Given the wind direction I judged that if the trees did fall, they’d go down away from our place and fall to the north.
We are trapped in a climate emergency. Scientists reported last night that the data is in, and we have blown through the 1.5 degrees centigrade increased temperatures we had been warned would have dire consequences.
We’ve this bizarre adaptation gene in us. If it rains harder, we get a better umbrella. If there’s a wildfire, we turn on our air filter systems. Heatwaves we use our air conditioners, sandbags for rising floodwaters and for bomb cyclone fed atmospheric rivers it is now recommended to get your affairs in order because the end if not near the final moment is close enough to be visible to the naked survival instinct within us.
Individual human responses to the climate sputter in fits and starts between the impactful severe weather event and the day after when the sun comes back out. We call a tree service company. We have limbs removed and hope the trees will survive the next event.
Corporations are not people, they are entities that survive on and on so long as they can remain profitable. Sovereign nations behave much the same. Governments and corporations work against the grain of our collective humanity.
I haven’t been speaking to people this week, I haven’t been forcing the conversation, the observations from the people I encounter have been volunteered.
Like so many things in our life, like for instance our worn shoes that need replacing, like our shoes sometimes things will just have to wait, that the old shoes we are wearing will just have to do for the time being.
The monster storm that smacked us around on Sunday, the cleanup that has commenced on Tuesday, and the, you can come out now the storm has passed signal that has landed as sunlight with our morning coffee on Friday, sets us up for a repeat of the pattern of what can anyone do.
It might be that we are going to have to radically change how we educate our young. We may have to instruct children in how not to behave in the face of a global climate emergency.
I would include laughter in the instruction manual. Include optimism and add an action plan top to bottom, actions we can take individually and actions needed to be taken collectively, not just in one country but globally. We are in this together. How do I know— because there is no longer any corner of the world that is not touched by the impact of the shifting climate.
Water, wind, and who knows what else? Thanks Thanks for the update, and stay safe!