We’ve all been Californians these last few weeks. I was born and raised there. My experiences as a firefighter reached from the coastal redwoods of Humboldt County to the Santa Ana Fire Academy and Los Angeles County. My family and friends in Pasadena recently experienced one of the worst fires in California’s history.
I’ve learned from my share of run-ins with extreme weather events that these disasters don’t honor state borders or party lines. Political distractions won’t help the people trying to rebuild their lives or safeguard their communities from the next disaster. We need to come together to protect as many people as possible — and that requires leadership that supports recovery efforts based on Americans’ needs, not scoring political points.
The most deadly of the Los Angeles fires, the Eaton Fire, decimated the local community, obliterating countless homes and businesses, displacing thousands, and claiming at least 17 lives. Any rain relief brings with it a risk of mudslides.
The nation followed the Palisades Fire via images of a ruined coastal highway and celebrity homes in ashes. Nearby Altadena, a historically Black and Latino working-class community tucked up against the San Gabriel mountains, has fewer resources to rebuild. The scale and devastation of this kind of disaster and a lack of clear solutions have devolved into finger-pointing.
One damaging narrative being spread by right-wing opportunists is that the Los Angeles Fire Department’s recruitment policies and promotion of women and persons of color proved somehow detrimental to the effectiveness of their response. Firefighters worked tirelessly around the clock to protect communities. Some even lost their own homes. The false narrative that these fires happened due to hiring practices is insulting to all first responders who put themselves between fire and the public.
Instead, the conversation should focus on how to help the individuals, families and businesses who have suffered from these fires while planning for the untold number of communities that will face similar hardships in the coming years.
These extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common. Fires, floods and violent storms nationwide are made faster, more deadly, more frequent and more expensive by climate change. Even if we take action now, these extreme weather events will get worse before they get better. We’re all vulnerable to the climate crisis. That’s why we need urgent, joint action.
In Los Angeles, early fire damage and economic loss estimates are as high as $275 billion, making this the costliest natural disaster in American history. Recovery will require a fair distribution of public dollars for rebuilding community infrastructure and making the air safe to breathe, indoors and outdoors — especially critical for children and people with pre-existing health conditions. We also need policy solutions to address spiking insurance costs and inadequate resilience and disaster preparedness funding. All of this depends on significant money and a long-term vision.
One compelling policy precedent can be found in Vermont’s efforts to require fossil fuel companies to cover some of the costs of protecting communities in advance and rebuilding after these extreme weather events. Vermonters are struggling to pay for recovery from floods that hit them two years in a row, which were made more violent and destructive due to climate change. In response, the state created a climate superfund that requires polluters to pay for adaptation and recovery efforts.
This policy shifts the costs of climate-related disasters from Vermont families — who cannot absorb these costs alone — to the corporations responsible for the pollution fueling climate change. It’s only fair that these fossil fuel companies cover a substantial part of the costs to build resilience and recover from the extreme weather and climate disasters their actions helped hasten. California and other states could follow Vermont’s lead so families don’t have to shoulder the full costs of resilience, insurance hikes, and disaster preparedness, response and recovery.
There are many promising solutions to help Americans prepare and recover from climate and weather disasters. Policymakers must address their communities’ needs first to realize any of them — and hold accountable any politicians or corporations who try to distract us from pursuing real solutions.
