Before Believing
Yesterday afternoon Cal Fire announced it had determined the source of the fire. A power line on a PG&E transmission tower in the Pulga area broke free and slapped into the tower. Presumably the high winds whipped the wire into fire; a "flash mark" was observed on the tower, where the wire hit: in that "flash mark,” there be the fire. Meanwhile, near Concow and Rim roads, unspecified "vegetation"—we'll guess a tree, or trees—"made contact" with other power lines, sparking a second fire. That second fire was subsumed in the Pulga blaze, as it raced into Concow, Paradise, Magalia, the canyon, and wherever else it felt like going.
So. Now we know. And, from this, hopefully, we can learn, and try to do better. Like, power towers, and especially those way out in bumfuck, as these were, should probably be something less than a hundred years old. Too, power wires, strung amid trees, as these were, especially those out in bumfuck, as these were, should probably be what the Texas boys called "tree wire": coated, won't spark, won't break, even when trees land on them. 
Also, PG&E should clear vegetation around its lines, as it has promised to do, in various settlements, in the Ken Roye cases, brought for PG&E-caused fire damage, in this county and environs, and for more than twenty years. And, when comes days like November 8, with what Cal Fire calls "tinder dry vegetation and Red Flag conditions consisting of strong winds, low humidity and warm temperatures," PG&E should go ahead and preemptively cut the power. As PG&E considered doing, back then. We all got robocalls, in the days preceding the fire, from PG&E, advising that, because of fire danger, the company might flip the switch. But it hesitated, in doing so. Because, on occasions when it has done such, my how people would bitch and moan. Maybe, going forward, there will be less hesitancy, and also less bitching and moaning. Because it's less of a bother, to be without power for some hours. Then to be without everything. Forever.
At some point, PG&E, or whoever is covering its bills, will pay some money, to some people. That won't bring anything back. But that is what, in the Americans' current system of law, is considered "remedy." If a person violates the criminal law, s/he is put in a cage. If a person violates the civil law, s/he pays money. That's what we've got.
There is also "restorative justice," but the Americans are not much into that yet. Though the judge in the San Bruno case, where in 2010 PG&E blew up a neighborhood, killing a number of people, he's sort of walking that way. For as an additional condition of PG&E's 
probation, there in that San Bruno case, the judge has ordered the members of the board of directors of PG&E, to come up here, and tour the burned. Be in, what they've done.
That's a start. But it would be best, I think, if they could be made to be, really, in it. Just within hailing distance of this place, for instance, they could stand in the burned of the paint shop—still there, still a sad mess of burned—and they could talk there to those people, learn who they were, what the fire did, how the fire took it all away, down to the nine homeless cats they fed and cared for in the alley, that they can feed no more, and so who are now scattered, and gone. Then they can walk down to Paul’s house, which is a trailer, and an outhouse, on some asphalt, because his house is burned, the whole block is burned, the whole block where he worked, but his work is burned, and so the next two years, he will spend in an Andromeda Strain suit, earning money by wading through poisons, in the burned, the burned, that those PG&E board people made. And then they can come to my house, and they can stand outside the bathroom door, as I cry in the shower. Every day. For, as I have learned from women, this among the x-chromes has long been a Known Thing: private, and efficient: by the time you emerge, the water has washed away the tears, and you can assemble yourself such that no will Know, and commence to proceed through your day, like everything is Fine. Of course, the board members won’t want to get too close, to the steam, from that shower. Because there’s benzene in it.
It would be really good if these board members volunteered to come up here a couple days every week, to actually, physically, work, in the burned. Help clean it up. So then, maybe, they could more feel it. Because, when you can really feel, 
another person, place, or thing, then you won’t hurt them.
They could also go to the Magalia Community Church. That’s where these pictures were taken. Those are people, burned people, living there. And that’s what they’re living in. Ten families in tents, twenty-five more in trailers. That’s what they’ve got. It looks like a homeless camp. Because that's what it is. Homeless, burned. Everybody's scattered, but these people are scattered more than most. They're pretty much down as down goes. Don't even have some shitty basement apartment. Where be a lot of the burned. If they can get in. The church is currently asking people for donations of $20. Because that will buy a tank of propane, or a fan. With the propane, these burned in the church camp can maybe cook, shower, be a little warmer. With the fan, they can maybe be a little cooler. The church isn’t asking for money to get these burned into a decent home. Just some for a tank of propane. A fan. The PG&E board people, they could pitch in a couple $20s. I think.
And the PG&E board, as all of us, always, could also consider the song Danny Flowers wrote. Some fires ago. “Before Believing.” Where he says:
how would you feel
if the world was falling apart all around you
pieces of the sky were falling in your neighbor’s yard
but not on you
wouldn’t you feel just a little bit funny
think maybe there’s something
you ought to do
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0I2wed_1hA]
Comments
Very moving, Hecate.
The devastation can only be imagined by those of us from afar. Those of you in it are having your mettle tested. Stay strong.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
this
is pretty much what it's like up here these days. These photos were taken by a guy who came up here during the maroonment. He's a good guy. Almost all of this is of places around my house, or places that I go. Every day.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj5599Xl8uE]
this
is the Mexican restaurant where I used to eat. Amigos De Acapulco. About a block-and-a-half from my place. Kindly Mexican Jehovah's Witness couple. Never preached. Had really fiery hot salsa, there in the back. Which they vouchsafed unto me. Once I earned it.
"Once I earned it"
I can only imagine what you had to consume to earn it. Fortunately you don't need your tongue to write ; ).
i
had to convince them I was not your typical gringo, and would not cry for a hospital, if they served me the real thing.
this
is Paul's house. Down a block from me. He keeps a very tidy camp. They charge him $100 a month, for that outhouse. Because, here in the capitalism, when they burn you out, they then make you pay. To shit.
In Germany they make you pay to shit EVERYWHERE! /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
I know!
It's still that way??? I remember the first time at a train station I experienced that. I thought this can't be rea,l and at the same time how do I do this.
Free toilets, that would be bad old DDR, don’tcha know.
Most places it costs 50 or 70 euro cents and in the Leipzig train station it costs 1 whole euro ($1.12) to use the bathroom.
(You get a Sanifair coupon good for fifty cents off your purchase at some of the food stalls, but you have to spend at least 2,50 euro so mostly I, like many people, end up never using it.)
Why are your little thumbs up icons
not where they should be?
My guess: website software doesn’t generate quite the right HTML
in some situations when the last element of a post is an image.
For some reason, in those situations the thumbs-up icon ends up side-by-side with the top of the image, off to the right. It still works though.
it's
not just older people. Not any more. They haven't officially announced it yet, because two of them have not yet been "positively identified," so badly did they burn, but three generations of women—mother, daughter, granddaughter—died, in this one house. They were on Norwood, off Pentz, a bit above the hospital. So the fire got there fast. The youngest was 20. The granddaughter. In a wheelchair.
Some time back, in response to pestering from some newspaper, there were released, to all the world, 911 calls. From the day of the fire. My friend Heather and I, we listened to them. Because on one of them, was Heather's grandmother. In Concow. The fire was so fierce, and so fast, that the dispatcher, she told Heather's grandmother, to literally jump in the lake. And stay there. Shelter, in water. Until, hopefully, and some time soon, a fire crew, could get there. Which happened. For Heather's grandmother. In time.
We also heard, Heather and I, a long 911 call, from a woman, trapped with two other women, one in a wheelchair, all surrounded by fire, and bereft of any idea, what, in any and all worlds, to do. The dispatcher, in the call, he spins his wheels. He is not prepared. For anything. Like this. From, in the final moments, the women: Crying. Shrieking. Pleading. Coughing. Retching. Rattling. Silence.
We now know, Heather and I, that that, was these three women. And that we listened. To them die.
You would think. That when you die. That. In any decent community. Of human beings. No one. Other than blood. Would be permitted. To hear that.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOBxDfgDZjI]
Take it down is right.
We also have the choice not to listen. But of those who do pay witness to such tragedy, please continue to interpret it for others in this way. Beautiful music.
This hit me hard this morning. Not sure why.
John Hiatt was one of the first singer songwriters I learned from DH. Perfect song. A new genre at the time, which I now love.
Lots of loss I can't even process: we spent so much time and money trying to save my life from L. Borreliosis. I ended up in Chico, met a local rancher also getting treatment there.
Summered his cows up the Feather River Canyon. We've been to Paradise; Lake Almador in the frozen winter; Redbuds blooming on canyon walls in spring; wonderful rail "Ys" with trestles; winter pasture south of Chico; summer in Portola (Plumas County); Sick as a dog.
We left the US finally. But I feel as though I too have lost everything.
Nothing, is as bad as dying in a fire. I am so sorry for your losses and continuing struggles. You are right: they should all have to come and see what they have done. They should have to talk with you all as they walk. They should come and help clean up.
We have homeland security. What we need is Infrastructure security: waterways; water; electricity; communications to a property entrance; ports; highways; rail; transportation. All should be owned by us through our government. Privatizing does not work.
These are matters of security, commerce, defense. No public/private. Just public. The CommonWealth.
Thank you Hecate, this means so much.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
"We" will spend any amount of money, squander any
mass of resources, slaughter any number of human beings, in order to "secure" ourselves from, oh, i don't know, having to do without the natural resources and the subjugated labor of the billions who don't happen to live within the lines we've drawn on the globe, setting out what is us, what is ours.
Should anyone suggest that we tax ourselves in order to set aside for ourselves, secure from the inefficiencies, the depredations, the unethicisms of profit, we will be told that the kind of security we seek reveals us to be parasites, lacking those oh-so-important virtues of individual fortitude and stick-to-itiveness and blah blah blah fucking blah blah now leave us alone we're busy droning wedding parties. In the name of your security, you big babies who can't handle the truth that you want me on that wall ...
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Malheureusement, yes.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
Thank you
for that intimate portrait of Paradise.
Besame has been sharing as well, she's in a
Seattle neighborhood i think.
Still haven't heard word of knucklehead?
Can't really fathom Paradise, your words closing the gap.
Good speed, always.
Edit for spelling
Knucklehead ? Where are you ? I remember you so well ...
your home burned down too?
All I want to do is throwing up. Hard to stomach.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Has anyone heard anything from or about Knucklehead????
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
For years Pacific Graft and
For years Pacific Graft and Extortion has cut their budget for repairs and maintenance as well as hiring new employees to work their electrical lines
Now they've conveniently declaired bankruptcy, what - the third time in twenty or some years? Every time there is some type of problem, they pull this crap.....
I'm praying the state takes it over and we end up with a true public utility
But but but but ...
That would be socialism! And socialism is evil and inefficient, just a sinecure for loafing state workers. While capitalism is efficient because of competition. Oh, PG&E has no competition. But it's capitalist, full of hard working worker bees and intellectual giant management, while socialism is full of drone workers and politicians. Do you want California to become Venezuela? Or Zimbabwe?
/s
That's the kind of crap you will hear.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I just wonder who ever called that place 'paradise'?
Before it burned down, was is a paradise or what was it exactly?
Can you still cry?
One of my first impressions when I came to the US in 1982 and took the car from DC to NYC was the neighborhood of Bowery Street (if I remember it correctly). The row houses looked like destroyed by fire as if they just survived wwII bombardments. I think the destructions came about in the sixties. They were still there twenty years later. May be they are gone by today. Couldn't find images. I have the feeling lots of images are lost on the intertubes. I wonder how long it takes for paradise to become a paradise again.
In case I get all the stuff wrong, I apologize in advance.
https://www.euronews.com/live
The Bowery you saw was before 'gentrification'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowery
From that wiki and an image search it certainly does look like the image library of the Bowery was 'cleaned-up'.
yeah, and now I fear I may have made a mistake
in the name of the street. I remember you couldn't drive from DC into NYC without using it.
Hopefully I didn't make a mistake.
Sigh.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Interstate?
I-95? Goes down to Florida too.
EDIT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_95
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
yes, sure, it was on that route,
must have been, I never took another one to enter NYC.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I used to pass through what looked like a war zone on the
Cross-Bronx Expressway regularly in the 1970s, but that was driving into NYC from Connecticut, which is northeast of the city, not from DC which is south.
Was that
the depressing looking co-op city complex?
No, it was the South Bronx, known for landlords abandoning their
buildings — officially giving up ownership so they no longer had to pay property taxes and fees for city services. There were many fires. It was strongly suspected that many fires were being deliberately set so landlords could collect insurance money before abandonment.
There was a decade where “South Bronx“ was synonymous with “urban blight” / “blighted neighborhood.”
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=south+bronx+blight+burning+buildings
Co-op City, on the other hand, in 1975 was the site of what became an inspirational story for a lot of people on the Left. Motivated residents formed a committee and evolved into activists and community organizers, putting together a huge rent strike among tenants that lasted 13 months and ultimately succeeded in forcing city and state governments to negotiate a new arrangement for the complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-op_City,_Bronx
@mimi The town's name was
The town's name was originally 'Pair of Dice' It was a rough and roll honkey tonk western settlement that was full of mill workers, lumberjacks, prostitutes and miners. The name was eventually corrupted into 'Paradise'
oh, who would have thought that the dices could
cast something that could only be called 'a
groundzero'. So, it was a town resembling the gates to hell...sort of. No wonder ... Sigh. Thanks for the explanation.https://www.euronews.com/live
that story
is false.
I wondered ...
Thank you hecate,
for your writing, the photos, the music and the soulful Danny Flowers.
Of the music I especially enjoyed Sarah Harmer. It has such a radiant rhythm that insists you move, while she sings of loss. Any time you can feel joy in loneliness and loss is a treasure. I know you’ll keep finding those moments because that’s what you do. Thank you for the pictures you draw.
It's so impossibly sad.
So hard to contemplate. Is there a plan?
This nation stopped making plans long ago because it implies a strong central government that takes care of the people. We mock the idea of big long-term national plans, and regard them as communistic. China's Five-Year and Ten-Year Plans have always been derided in the West. A strong central government with surplus wealth is deplored as a dictatorship. If China or Russia completes their plans and then convenes to set additional goals, this is a threat to our Liberty and Freedom. China's Belt and Road Initiative is one such plan, and it's continued success will push China toward confrontation and war with the US.
In the US we live in the moment, now. We don't know where we are headed or what our national goals are. Even the predictable consequences of our actions come as a complete surprise. We are flabbergasted by aggressive reactions and change.. Accordingly, if we should face a flood, fire, or famine, it will be regarded as a completely unpredictable event and one that is annoyingly inconvenient. All we know for sure is that it has nothing to do with climate change and we will find someone to blame. American responses to natural disasters are increasingly disorganized and underfunded, year over year. So take advantage of every program you can access now. The only solutions our leaders care to provide in the future consists of guns and bombs and drones. Death and chaos is our game. Profit is our name. Solutions that include Plans for sustainable living are regarded as communistic devices that are used by our enemies to enslave their people.
Today I was contemplating the "simple truths" that we forget because of all the weeds, distractions, alligators, and swamps we have to deal with on a daily basis. Today I realized that you cannot expect reliable agriculture in a geographical location that has extreme weather or weather extremes. That simple truth is enveloping American farmlands. At the moment, we have atmospheric rivers flowing through the skies, pouring out its deluge across the land where our food grows. In another week or so, it will be too late to plant again the crops that have been washed away. And, because we're not Commies, we haven't made a plan for "not enough food" and soaring prices. Capitalism figures that out for us automatically; it decides who eats and who goes hungry in a famine. I found this report when I looked deeper:
.
To make this a perfect storm, the trade war tariffs hurt farmers even in good weather. Many farmers who could plant will not if the market is bad; they will rely on subsidies instead. Thin harvest ahead.
I know you are also in a farming area that is impacted by the weather. It's probably a good time for everyone to buy extra food for the pantry now at prices we won't see again. At least that's my libertarian plan. When the going gets rough, the capitalists go libertarian. Socialism, where everyone is rescued, requires meticulous planning, looking far into the future.
in re
plans, everybody's pretty much making it up as they go along. The Americans have not had an entire town burn down since the 19th Century, and they made no plans for that. So there's a lot of flailing. An example: FEMA. Flummoxed as to where to put the trailers. All its mass housing models presuppose the B.F. Skinnerdom of cities. And we don't have that here.
Most individuals and entities are proceeding in good faith, though not all of them. Miscreants include Chico landlords evicting long-time tenants to skirt the anti-gouging rent ordinances: nothing prevents them from selling the properties, at inflated post-fire prices. Then there are the rat bastard Republican state legislators crying crocodile tears about the housing shortage as reason for a measure that would suspend environmental oversight for all local development for the next twenty years.
It's patchy. This article provides a good example. The municipal water district here in Paradise is proceeding slowly and carefully, advising people to give the water a wide berth, and for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile the neighboring water district, privately owned, is more all shiny happy people, saying, sure, drink the water, bathe in the water, get all naked with it, without really ensuring the stuff will not leave a tumor trail.
As for the food, most of the food up here at present is mobile: food trucks. Right down the street from me is the Inferno Pizza guy. Seven days, noon to seven, each day. Good stuff. So, I'm set. : )
oh,
and earlier in the week, before the rains came in, I planted a bunch of peppers. Whether the fruits will glow in the dark, we will have to see.
burnt out....
...and no escape. Saw a clip somewhere that showed a son driving his dad through the burning forest that looked like hell itself. A tree fell across the road, and they put the car in reverse and made it to a lake. They swam out and luckily a boat came to their rescue.
I hope your community can heal, and that these sorts of fires don't become yearly disasters.
PS I believe I would dig a hole an make an out house myself before I would pay $100/month....but I live where there are no codes ...and women (and POC) are still considered property.
Wishing you peace and comfort.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Haunting, hecate.
While the original meaning is not quite right, it's also somehow appropriate.
I hope you, and Heather, and Paul, and the families of those poor, poor women, and everyone so deeply affected, and scarred, can ultimately take Paradise back for yourselves, in a way that heals.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5rde4bRIZA]
Thank you for sharing everything you have.
(Edited to fix link)
Hecate, your words
truly convey the deep pain that you are feeling. Even if you are a survivor and did not lose your possessions, you have lost your community. Something as traumatic as having to undergo a firestorm will leave permanent scars. But even scars will fade some with time. I hope the scars of being one of the burned will fade for you too. And I also wish that some new and positive memories will come into your life to help crowd out the trauma of the old ones.
When I read your essays, I feel deep empathy for you and your friends and neighbors. But none of us can begin to imagine just how traumatic your life has been as a result of this horrible tragedy. My heart goes out to you. Stay strong and continue to write about it as long as it feels right to do so.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy