By Alissa Walker
California’s deadliest, (click here) most destructive fire in history leveled a city of 26,000 residents within a matter of hours. “Completely destroyed,” read the headlines. “Obliterated.” “Paradise lost.”
After a year punctuated by increasingly alarming climate reports, as well as some of the most devastating disasters for many U.S. cities, it’s been difficult to grasp the severity of what seems to be happening—and the fact that it seems to be happening faster and more frequently than we expected.
In November 2018, the Camp Fire burned 95 percent of the structures in the city of Paradise, killing 86 people.
But it was only a few weeks before the Camp Fire that a similar set of phrases were used to describe Mexico Beach, Florida, after one of the strongest hurricanes in U.S. history made landfall, killing 45 people: “It’s all gone,” “nothing left.”
No human lives were at risk, but seeing an 11-acre Hawaiian island vanish after a rare, powerful storm swept over the state elicited the same type of responses: “No one expected East Island to disappear this quickly.”
It’s clear now what the accelerated timeline of climate change really means is a swift, steady decline in the number of places where we will be able to make our homes, visit for pleasure, and, eventually, survive....
...On November 8, 2018, (click here) a wildland fire identified as the Camp Fire was reported at Pulga Road at Camp Creek Road near Jarbo Gap in Butte County, according to the website of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (“CAL FIRE”). CAL FIRE is the lead investigative agency and has identified the start time of the fire as 6:33 a.m. On CAL FIRE’s website, CAL FIRE has identified coordinates for the Camp Fire near Tower :27/222 on PG&E’s Caribou-Palermo 115 kV Transmission Line. CAL FIRE’s website also reports that approximately 153,336 acres have been burned, 18,793 structures have been destroyed, and that there were 85 civilian fatalities and 3 firefighter injuries. The Camp Fire has been fully contained.
Approximately? These are computerized systems. Why approximately?
On November 8, 2018, at approximately 6:15 a.m., the PG&E Caribou-Palermo 115kV Transmission Line relayed and deenergized. One customer was impacted by the transmission outage. At approximately 6:30 a.m. a PG&E employee observed fire in the vicinity of Tower :27/222, and this observation was reported to 911 by PG&E employees. In the afternoon of November 8, PG&E observed damage on the line at Tower :27/222, located near Camp Creek and Pulga Roads, near the Town of Pulga. Specifically, an aerial patrol identified that on
Tower :27/222, a suspension insulator supporting a transposition jumper had separated from an arm on the tower. The suspension insulator and the transposition jumper remained suspended above the ground...
A piece of the United States has been dramatically wiped off the map after an island in Hawaii was washed away by a powerful hurricane.
East Island, a remote spit of gravel and sand that sat atop a coral reef, has vanished after having this misfortune to come into contact with Hurricane Walaka, an intense storm that surged past Hawaii earlier this month.
Footage captured by Chip Fletcher shows what the island looked like before it was annihilated while satellite imagery from the US Fish and Wildlife Services shows how little was left after the hurricane
