Editor:
I am writing today to address two aspects of the recent Grand Jury report published in the NCJ on Sept. 4.
Firstly, I am utterly gobsmacked that the board of supervisors once again is failing in its responsibilities, and falling behind in maintaining county facilities, even as the Garberville Veterans Hall is being rebuilt due to lack of such maintenance. How many college degrees are required to realize how much less expensive it is in the long term to keep the roof from leaking? Is it possible they suffer from collective Alzheimer’s?
Secondly, without taking anything away from the communities around Eureka and Arcata that are one-way in and out, I feel it’s important to point out that it’s quite likely more the rule than the exception here in SoHum, and possibly in NoHum as well. As recent disasters have taught us (who would have thought Lahaina was a wildfire/urban conflagration risk?), anywhere is subject to risk during extremely windy and dry conditions. As a founding member of the Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council (but speaking as a private citizen today), I can state that the wildfire resiliency community is coming around to admitting that, especially in lightning busts that start dozens of fires with help from around the state days away, suppression forces can be easily overwhelmed, and unable to protect more than a small fraction of threatened structures. The solution is that individual residents and landowners need to take responsibility to prepare their properties in advance. In order to succeed, adequate defensible space (managing vegetative and human derived fuels around buildings: firesafesonoma.org/wp-content/uploads/living_with_fire.pdf) must be integrated with structures hardened to resist ignition, especially from wind borne embers: anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8393.pdf. We can’t expect that there will be an engine in every driveway.
Dave Kahan, Redway
This article appears in Red-Light Women, Part II.
