In late February, Sonoma County California experienced intense flooding causing several hundred millions of dollars in damage. Fortunately loss of life was very low relative to the fires that ravaged the same region the year before.
In this week's podcast, we talk with Adam Parks, whom we've interviewed previously about sourcing and preparing sustainably-raised meat (he operates a meat CSA in Sonoma County). Adam's business in Sebastopol, CA was hit hard by the flooding, and he graciously paused his recovery efforts to give us a play-by-play account of what happened during the disaster and how Sonoma County is recovering from the floods.
This is a little different from our usual fare, but is an instructive reminder that disasters strike without warning, and that when they do, most people and businesses are caught completely unawares.
Click the play button below to listen to my interview with Adam Parks (38m:14s).
I’m about to listen to this. Thanks for putting it up. I do hope that Adam Parks mentions the link to climate. For every 1°C the global temperature rises, another 7% more water (moisture) is absorbed into the air (atmosphere). So basically, as the world warms, it becomes more humid. And more humidity means more floods, more huge precipitations, and even more snowfall (anyone noticed the gigantic snowstorms recently?)
Welcome to the new planet: “Eaarth” (not Earth), as Bill McKibbon calls it. http://billmckibben.com/eaarth/eaarthbook.html
The drought in the Southwest has improved significantly.
Does anyone remember how bad this map looked early last year?
Professor Valentina Zharkova, of “Grand Solar Minimum” fame, points out that people have blinders on… only see their pet concern.
My personal issue with the climate change emphasis, is that it is so pervasive that it draws attention away from “minor” things like the “anthropogenic sixth mass extinction” and the worsening global fresh water problem and many other issues.
So, there was a section of this podcast that reminded me of one big hole we have in our preparation here at Chateau Snydeman. We live on a hill and our basement is very dry. However, we have had two sewage line back ups that luckily were caught in time, but I imagine that if power was cut and the area pumps no longer working, having water back up into our basement is a real concern. We have two openings in the basement I’m worried about: the spot where the utility sink is, and the spot where the washing machine line drains.
Any good ideas on how we could/should plug these up when/if TEOTWAKI happens?
