2.2 minute read
August 25, 2020
The dog days of summer have turned vicious for many communities in California. As of this writing 1.4 million acres of California have burned in some extremely challenging terrain where communities once felt safe. The story is becoming all too familiar to us: dry winter, low snowpack, accumulation of tinder dry vegetation, and monsoonal weather patterns producing thunder and lightning and ensuing fire storms. I wish I could stop there, but the full story is even worse because our resources to fight the fires are strapped and we are amid a pandemic which continues to put stresses on our first responders and supporting infrastructure. This affects us all but, primarily the citizens of the communities under siege or being threatened and of course the brave women and men on the fire’s front lines. And then, the stresses and strains on the cities, counties, communities to support the dislocated and how best to respond over the long term.
So, what do we do? What can we do? First up is to understand how our communities are being affected by staying up on the latest impacts and reach out to your network of friends and colleagues to make sure they’re safe and let them know you are there for them. Secondly, there will be enumerable financial needs for people and communities and to the extent donations are within your household budgets, every little bit helps. Third, and this is big third in this short list, Harris and our industry have a responsibility to keep pace with the needs of an increasingly complex and uncertain world. We must continue to help our clients at the intersection of climate change, aging infrastructure and constrained funding. Together we can partner to develop more resilient communities.
Each generation has had to face extraordinarily challenging times and this our time. Maintaining the status quo only leads to more of the same. In order to change our direction from the current path we have been on, it takes a different view and thinking of the long term. Only then can we imagine what is possible to create and conceive a brighter future and by extension, a better world.
My heart goes out to those who have had devastating losses and to the weary first responders. We must act with some urgency folks as change is accelerating. We can do better things for a brighter world and that is why amid these extraordinarily challenging I have deep and abiding hope for all.
