Saturday, November 24, 2018

Potential mobility as a way to survive Climate change

When I see people with pop top tent camper trailers or cabover campers or even the latest little (bed only) trailers  for people to sleep in out of the rain I think about how "mobility" to escape fires and floods and hurricanes is really really important now for people, especially if they live in the South East or in the West of the U.S. For example, this is supposed to be an El Nino year, what that COULD mean if this weren't a global warming scenario year (so we actually have no idea now what will happen). What it could mean in a normal EL Nino year would be California flooding and flash flooding and cliffs with houses on them falling into the ocean and bridges being washed by that flooding into the sea like what happened in the 1990s to the bridge on Highway 1 next to Crossroads shopping mall in Carmel that the flooding (and trees and bushes) just lifted up and threw several miles (a cement and metal Bridge!" out into the ocean where it sank quite a ways from shore.

"What nature can do is amazing!" by the way. I wouldn't have believed it could even happen unless I had gone there  just after it happened to see all the people (Cut off) from civilization by this bridge being washed into the sea. So, people for several weeks south of the Carmel River had to drive 10 to 20 miles extra on a dirt road to get out or to take a helicopter to get to work even in Carmel. Luckily no one died from the bridge being washed away because they had closed it well before it was lifted up and carried to the sea by many trees and water pressure from the Carmel River then. And the Crossroads mall next to the bridge also flooded then about 6 inches to 1 feet deep. And the movie theater had water 4 feet deep in it and a bank had an underground parking lot near the post office (the one near Crossroads) and it had Mercedes cars floating in this underground parking lot filled with water then.

So, I guess what I'm saying here is your ability to be mobile and to stay dry whether that is with a tent or a small travel trailer with a bed you can tow behind your all wheel drive or two wheel drive car might be important (or a relative's home away from the coast or fires) might be how you actually survive in hurricanes, fires, storm surge or whatever kind of disaster you are trying to escape now in the U.S.

The crisis in people's lives was so severe from losing this bridge that it cut off everyone from the Carmel River south to Big Sur because at the same time Highway 1 was also cut from storms south of Big Sur too which happens almost every winter now during storms because of the instability of the coast south of Big Sur towards Morro Bay on the Coast.

So, the Government had to bring in the Army Corps of engineers and they brought a temporary bridge on the back of Army Semi trucks. So, within 3 weeks of the disaster of losing that bridge they had a temporary army metal bridge strung across for emergency travel by locals to their jobs and to buy food. Within 2 months they had built a new bridge (under a special contract) so the bridge you see there crossing the Carmel River next to the Crossroads Mall is the one I'm talking about now built by the Army Corps of engineers or whoever they contracted to do it in the shortest time possible for locals to survive all this.

So, mobility in disasters is important however you can figure out to survive disasters of all kinds in your lives when they arise. They are usually unexpected disasters and they can have far reaching effects on your lives in completely unpredictable ways that you could never imagine in 100 years otherwise until you actually experience something like this first hand.

No comments: