Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

High Water

As you have no doubt heard or even seen, the Columbia, the Willamette, and many other northwest rivers are very full right now. The Willamette is high, but the Columbia at Vancouver is actually over flood stage. Fortunately, the actual flooding at Vancouver has been slight so far, and little damage is anticipated by forecasters. Floods are awful, dangerous, messy things, and I've been fortunate never to have experienced one personally – but I will admit that growing up, I found floods completely fascinating and always wished we'd have one in Portland. I think the two books below may have helped fuel my early romantic ideas about floods:

First, I blame Tove Jansson, author of the eminently satisfying Moomin series (a childhood favorite of mine). In her wonderful book Moominsummer Madness, the Moomin family are flooded out of their house as a wave sweeps through their valley. But luckily, a new house comes floating by right at their moment of need! Everyone clambers aboard and great relief is felt. However, the house turns out not to be a house at all, but a theater, already occupied by a theater-lover named Emma – and many high jinks ensue as the collection of flood refugees explore floats down the valley, and eventually stages a play written by Emma and Moominpapa.

When I was a little older, I got a second hit of flood-fascination from another novel, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. It's a complex coming-of-age story about Ruthie and Lucille, two sisters who are raised by a grandmother, two great-aunts, and eventually, their very eccentric aunt Sylvie. I couldn't begin to summarize the whole plot here, but, here's the important part for our subject today: the flood. Although the family home is in a town that is frequently plagued by floods, it is built high up usually stays dry. But one year, the flood waters rise so high that the house does flood, and the family's response is magical! When the water has just begun to invade the first floor of their house, Ruthie and Sylvie dance around in flood water up to their knees.  When it rises higher they retreat to the second floor, and use a fishing line to rescue inundated objects from downstairs.  Throughout their ordeal, they enjoy the unusual situation rather than worrying about the mess, the damage, and the discomfort.

A common thread in these books is that their characters try earnestly to look at life's challenges with whimsy and optimism, and to find joy wherever they can. I doubt this approach alone would carry me through the challenge of a real-life flood, but I hope that if high water ever reaches me, I'll remember to laugh a little, if I can.

Meltdown

As reports continue to come in from Japan, the news moves from bad to worse – not only did Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the following tsunami take lives, destroy property and natural resources, and render millions of people homeless – it has seriously damaged several of Japan's nuclear power plants. The two worst hit plants, Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Stations, have suffered explosions, loss of power to their cooling systems, and partial meltdown. Radioactive material may continue to be released for months. Sobering news, indeed. Since this is hardly the first time a nuclear power plant has suffered an accident, there are many interesting books illustrating different ways these accidents have affected human and natural history – read on for a hand-picked selection.

The worst nuclear power plant accident in recent memory was in 1986 at reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine. The nearby cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat (both within about 10 miles of the plant) were abandoned shortly after the disaster because the whole area was dangerously radioactive. Photographer Robert Polidori visited about 15 years later, and Zones of Exclusion is his record of what remains. Houses, schools, parks, and streets are still there, but they are crumbling, peeling, shifting, sinking, and leaning. Trees grow in city squares, abandoned schoolrooms lie disheveled but nearly intact under a dozen years of radioactive dust, and rusting boats list in the shallow waters at the edge of the River Pripyat. The photographs are grim, but surprisingly beautiful – and they definitely inspired me to think carefully about the long-term, unintended effects of human endeavors.

Nuclear accidents have occurred in the United States too. The most well-known is the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979. At the 25-year anniversary of the accident, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission historian J. Samuel Walker published Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. This is a serious text, filled with detail and critical analysis. It's not a breezy read, but it is a very thorough and interesting discussion of the accident in political, social, and historical context, with emphasis on the 1970s-era debate about nuclear power, the regulatory structures in place at the time, and of course, the portrayal of the accident and surrounding crisis in the media and popular culture.

Despite the horrors natural and man-made disasters bring, life continues, and people are able to find some hope. For example, the English language edition of the Japanese daily Asahi Shinbun ran a story this morning about two women who delivered healthy baby girls in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture in the hours after the tsunami struck the town. But we also find inspiration and reassurance in the very act of making it through disaster together. Rebecca Solnit explores this territory in A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. Solnit uses the examples of five historical disasters, and though none of her examples are nuclear accidents, there is no doubt that they illustrate the dynamics that are evident in all disasters. Included are many little-known stories, like the impromptu flotilla of boats that ferried New Yorkers across the river to safety on 9/11, or the woman who set up a kitchen in Golden Gate Park after the 1906 earthquake and fed anyone who would eat, for free. Solnit's core message is that people, as a rule, respond to disaster in the most helpful, community-minded way, and the experience changes us for the better. No one would ask for an earthquake to strike or a nuclear power plant to melt down, but when it does, it brings out the best in most of us.

Down in a Mine

If I say "picture a coal mine" do you think of something out of the 19th century? Many of us do, because coal seems like such an out-of-date Industrial Revolution-era product. Even with all the political discussion of the possibility of creating "clean" coal technology for electricity production, city dwellers like me find the notion of anyone mining or burning coal nowadays to be, well, remote. But it's not. When I first heard about the tragic accident at Massey Energy Company's Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, it reminded me that just last week I'd heard that Portland General Electric is proposing to close its coal-fired electricity plant in Boardman in 2020, rather than 2040, as they had planned. Together, these two very different stories illustrate that coal is actually quite central to our society today.

The Upper Big Branch mine is an underground mine, but many coal mines in West Virginia are not. Instead, they are surface mines – mining companies use explosives to blast soil and rock off the tops of hills, remove the exposed coal, and dump the rubble into nearby valleys. Mining companies are supposed to restore the mountains to their pre-mined state, but often they don’t, or can’t. People in West Virginia’s mining country aren’t sitting still for this – Coal River is journalist Michael Shnayerson's account of the grassroots organization Coal River Mountain Watch, and their fight against Massey Energy’s (the same company that operates the Upper Big Branch mine) mountaintop removal mining efforts. The book eloquently advocates for the activists’ cause, with supporting evidence from court transcripts, company and government reports, and on-the ground observations and interviews.

On a similar social change sort of theme, John Sayles’s beautiful and sad film Matewan tells the story of a group of coal mine workers’ efforts to form a union in 1920s Matewan, West Virginia. When mine owners get wind of this, they fire everyone they think may be a labor activist, and bring in African American and Italian workers from out of state. This incites racial tensions, and it is only through the efforts of an out-of-town organizer from the United Mine Workers that the two groups of miners begin to see that their only hope for self-determination is to stick together. Ultimately, the story is a moral one: in favor of solidarity and democracy, and against corporate greed and racism.

For an even more intimate and human view on the lives of coal miners, I have two recommendations – the first is The Road to Wigan Pier, by George Orwell. Only part of the book is about coal miners and their lives, but my is it evocative! In the late 1930s, Orwell spent several months living with working people in Britain’s industrial north to research the living and working conditions of miners and others in the laboring classes. He doesn’t mince words, but describes hardscrabble conditions plainly and eloquently, with humor and always with an eye to intelligent political analysis.

If you’re eager to read still more about the daily lives of miners and their families, try reading When the Mines Closed: Stories of Struggles in Hard Times. It’s a collection of oral histories Thomas Dublin collected from people in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania. The stories are intimate tales about parenting, marriage, the struggle to get an education or manage economic difficulties, and above all, friendship, family, and faith.

(Incidentally, if you're into statistics and facts, be sure check out the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' newly updated fact sheet Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities in the Coal Mining Industry. It's a pretty dangerous business.)

Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst...

If Russian academic Igor Panarin's newest theory is correct, in about 18 months Oregon will be part of China. This is part of a larger forecast Panarin made which predicts that the United States will dissolve into six spheres of influence under conditions most of us would liken to an apocalypse. Happy New Year! Thankfully, Panarin states that there is only a 45-55% chance of said event coming to fruition. Whew...

To be honest, Panarin's prognostication doesn't exactly fill me with dread. Call me an optimist but I'm not about to spend 2009 preparing for the end of the world as we know it. However, if that tingling, creepy, melancholy feeling is what you're looking (and as a fan of post-apocalyptic movies I could sympathize) try Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's a quick read compared to his many of his other works and, like No Country for Old Men, it has recently been adapted for film. In fact, some of The Road's bleak, weather-beaten, exterior sequences were filmed in Oregon. Considering that we've been at Nature's mercy for the past couple weeks it might be easy to identify with this novel's protagonist and his efforts to save his son in a cold world, nearly burned away by an unnamed ecological disaster of unimaginable scale.

And, if things do happen to get worse here, we can count on Joshua Piven's The Complete Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook to provide a plan for escape. Illustrated with easy-to-read diagrams and including even (or perhaps, only) the most outlandish predicaments, Piven's book makes imagining being attacked by a bear fun again. I recommend the audio-book version as read by Mr. Burt Reynolds. Clocking in at a little less than two hours, it is the perfect duration for a trip through the Cascades or out to the coast and it will keep you in stitches as it prepares you for anything that could, but almost certainly won't, go wrong.

As far as secession from the union goes, Panarin's a step slow. Folks around these parts have been dabbling with that idea for a while now. Hypothetical nation-states have included; the Republic of Cascadia, the State of Lincoln and the State of Jefferson. If one needed convincing of the longevity of this concept I'd point them in the direction of The State of Jefferson a terrific collection of prose and photos by Bernita Tickner and Gail Fiorini-Jenner. The State of Jefferson is a causal look at life in Southern Oregon/Northern California and includes many playful observations such as the re-emergence of Etna, the official beer of the State of Jefferson. The real fun in The State of Jefferson is looking over its many photographs. Their quality and abundance makes imagining living in this place, both mythical and real, a joy.

The Big One

At 10 a.m. this morning Southern California held a region-wide earthquake drill. Can you picture it? Millions of people in schools, workplaces, at home, and on public transit interrupted their normal lives and pretended that there was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on the San Andreas fault, lasting for about three minutes.

I spent a few years in Southern California as a child and I regarded earthquake drills as a major highlight of the school year – but an earthquake drill that everyone takes part in sounds even more fun! The part of me that is still 10 years old knows it would be exciting to participate in something big and important and out of the normal order of things. But, a drill this comprehensive also appeals to my super-responsible inner adult. Now that I'm grown up, I know that when I have to do difficult, stressful things, it really does pay to have had a chance to practice first. And it might be nice to have the experience of practicing for an earthquake with everyone in the whole metro area – neighbors, co-workers, friends and strangers alike. Perhaps we'll get our chance someday.

In the meantime, it's only responsible for me to remind you all that although earthquakes aren't as frequent here in Cascadia as they are along the San Andreas fault, we are prone to them, too.  And furthermore, ice storms, tornadoes, floods and volcanic eruptions have all occurred here within living memory.  The library has dozens of books that can help you hone your survival skills, but if you're interested in understanding why some folks do well in disasters, and other don't; or if you wonder why some disasters are just, well, more disastrous than others, I'd recommend The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes–And Why. Author Amanda Ripley examines past disasters through stories of real people's experiences, and scientific studies of disaster survival and emergency management. Here's one startling conclusion she makes: mass panic in disasters is actually quite rare. For the most part, when unexpected horror arrives, people help each other and act in a way that is outwardly quite calm. And what's Ripley's advice about how you and I can prepare for a calamity? She asserts that one of smartest, most efficient things local government and disaster planning organizations can do to help make disasters less, um, disastrous, is to encourage people to meet their neighbors and co-workers. Give folks a chance to practice a little bit of “safety first” with each other, she says, and not only will they have experience to draw on when it's really important, but may have begun to establish relationships with each other. Basic competence and human cooperation are quite important in surviving the unthinkable, it seems.

If you're more of a historical bent and the news of Southern California's earthquake drill has got you thinking about the past, you might appreciate Denial of Disaster, by Gladys Hansen and Emmet Condon. It's about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, but instead of telling the story with narrative, statistics, or personal stories, it presents hundreds of previously unpublished photographs of the destruction following the earthquake, and of the fire, the looting, and the rebuilding of the city. The pictures are vivid, fascinating, appalling, and beautiful at the same time.