After a few days of this not-knowing, the fires themselves became secondary to the smoke and ash. “I seriously couldn’t breathe even with my N95 mask on,” she says. Some days the sky was so thick with smoke that it felt like a dome was overhead, they were sealed within a snowglobe. “Like a Mad Max movie, with a red sun dot” in that grey shell. Outside, nothing but “raining ash and the smell of burning—reminded me of Pompeii.” She began thinking about what kind of look she should have on her face if she was to be buried in ash for centuries. Two centimeters of ash coated every tree and plant. Sweeping it only created clouds. She prudently taped up her doors and windows, but it didn’t help. When she drove to the store, the smoke plus “just all the ash whirling” made her feel disoriented, nauseated. Today, with the air quality at a level never before seen in Oregon, she felt compelled to leave.[6] She’s going back east to her parents, thankful that they can still accommodate the whole family, fully recognizing her privilege: her relatively secure finances and a job that allows her to work remotely.

All these disasters signal to her something even more unnerving. “It’s clear and obvious that we as a country are fucking ourselves.” It’s not just the fires, it’s the rumors that “Antifa” set these fires. “Even natural disasters push us apart.” She believes that the Portland protests are still continuing even in the face of this, but that even in her neighborhood, people are divided over who is responsible for what. Should we blame the cops, the protesters, the “white extremists” who do the looting or the “white extremists” who fire off the tear gas at the protesters? Underneath that, she wonders “will my kids have an ordinary lifespan?” If we cannot handle something straightforward like a killer virus—if even pandemics divide the country into two roughly equal, opposite chunks—how will we address the heat that’s coming, heat that will start fires sooner, that will make hurricanes wetter?

Her advice for our future era of climate change? “Buy a bus.” “Property is optional.” “Agility is the most important thing.” “Survive.”

Notes

[1] Gabrielle Calise, “We’re Running out of Hurricane Names during the 2020 Storm Season,” Tampa Bay Times, September 14, 2020, https://www.tampabay.com/hurricane/2020/09/14/were-running-out-of-hurricane-names-during-the-2020-storm-season/.

[2] “Hurricane Sally Blasts Ashore as a Powerful Category 2 Storm, Bringing Punishing Rain, Flooding,” CNBC, September 16, 2020, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/16/hurricane-sally-latest-updates.html.

[3] Sarah Lynch Baldwin, “Hurricane Sally Aftermath: Flooding Threats Expand across the Southeast,” September 17, 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-sally-gulf-coast-path-track-death-toll/.

[4] Telephone conversation with author, September 15, 2020.

[5] “EXCLUSIVE: Dashcam Video from First Night of Holiday Farm Fire,” KEZI News, September 15, 2020, https://www.kezi.com/content/news/WATCH-Dashcam-video-from-first-night-of-Holiday-Farm-Fire-572419861.html; News Staff, “Holiday Farm Fire East of Springfield Burns Area Nearly 4 Times the Size of Eugene,” KVAL, September 9, 2020, https://kval.com/news/local/holiday-farm-fire-east-of-springfield-has-burned-over-100k-acres-since-monday-night; Shane Dixon Kavanaugh | The Oregonian/OregonLive, “Holiday Farm Fire Ravages Oregon Towns, Premier Outdoor Playground near Eugene: ‘Catastrophic Damage,’” oregonlive, September 9, 2020, https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/09/holiday-farm-fire-ravages-oregon-towns-premier-outdoor-playground-near-eugene-catastrophic-damage.html.

[6] Joseph Winters, “Oregon’s Air Quality Is so Far beyond ‘Hazardous’ That No One Knows What It Means for Health,” Grist (blog), September 11, 2020, https://grist.org/climate/oregons-air-quality-is-so-far-beyond-hazardous-that-no-one-knows-what-it-means-for-health/.