I've shared the story of our own little corner of the world, but obviously it pales in comparison with what has happened in Japan. Rather than stumble around in my typical fashion, I thought I'd do some real public service by posting a bit of the Rachel Maddow show and her clear, lucid segment about nuclear power and it's containment--or lack thereof. Here's the first:
To relate this back to our own experience here in Santa Cruz for just a moment, it became very clear that accurate information is crucial when contemplating disaster. Our survival modes kick in. In this county, while many people went down to watch the tsunami, others fled to the hills. Many of those who chose the hill option were Hispanic. Was this because they were more cowardly or more naive than their white counterparts? No. One reason was that many of them lived in the lowlands that were actually being evacuated. The other part of it was that on Spanish radio, reports of 30 foot waves were being broadcast, as opposed to the 6 foot waves on English speaking channels. With that in mind, here's another clip:
Many people here first learned of the Japanese earthquake by one of two means. First, there was a late night tsunami warning that came over the television--my sister got one up at her home in San Rafael--and there was the 'reverse 911' call, which several of my friends got, notifying them of a voluntary tsunami evacuation. As much of this kind of thing may well be cut soon, I thought, I'd also put up this little clip from The Ed Show:
My own public service announcement is now over. Good luck, everyone.
2 hours ago
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Thank you. Parlous, indeed.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, Kathleen. It's bit of a cop out to just post a bunch of video, I suppose, but I don't think I could have improved on these explanations.
ReplyDeleteI suppose at some point, I will stop running across parlous events and get on to a new word or something, but then again, maybe not, the way things are going.