Sunday’s crash of an Ethiopian airliner is a terrible tragedy in which 157 people lost their lives. The scenes of anguish and destruction are horrific and heartbreaking. Air travel’s safety record has improved tremendously, but any crash feels intolerable and … Continue reading →
…whether in Paradise, California, or any other disaster-prone area, that is the question. Paradise and many other towns in California seem especially vulnerable to fire. But although quite a few fires have raged near Paradise for many decades, it was … Continue reading →
One of the earliest posts I ever wrote on this blog (in January 2005) was called “The tsunami and the forgetting“. It was about the phenomenon of people forgetting—and certainly forgetting the details of—huge and terrible disasters, even recent ones. … Continue reading →
That question was asked recently several times on this blog, and this article provides a lucid answer. I highly recommend the entire article. Since the November 8 fire, I’ve certainly learned far more about wildfires that threaten homes than I … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Part I can be found here.] In my research so far about what happened in the Paradise fire and why it went so wrong, I kept trying to get a good timeline, with distances. When exactly did the fire … Continue reading →
[NOTE: This is the first of a two-part series.] Not too long after the Paradise fire, commenter “Cicero” wanted to know why the people of Paradise left town so late: I am not clear how close the wildfire was to … Continue reading →
You may be surprised to learn that there are a lot of towns in America called “Paradise.” Twenty-six, to be exact. Or maybe it’s twenty-five now, because one was destroyed in a single day by an inferno that swept through … Continue reading →
It seems like a no-brainer: the catastrophic fires that have swept through California in recent years could be made much less severe by a more effective and frequent use of controlled burns to thin the forest more. But although that … Continue reading →
The name of the northern California Sierra foothill town of Paradise is evocative. Paradise! A place you might want to go. A place you might even want to live. But reports are that the town of 27,000 is no more, … Continue reading →
An Indonesian plane has crashed into the ocean and all 189 people on board are almost certainly dead. Articles about the crash are almost unutterably sad: the photos of IDs and cellphones found floating in the water, the grieving and … Continue reading →
Well worth reading. When the Times sticks to straight reporting, sometimes it does a very good job. I learned details I hadn’t known before. For example: 10,000 people participated, including 2,000 soldiers, 200 divers and representatives from 100 government agencies… … Continue reading →
All of the boys, as well as their coach, have been rescued: The 12 Thai soccer players and their coach who have been trapped in a cave in northern Thailand for more than two weeks have all been rescued. “We … Continue reading →