September 11, 2011

The heat lingered through into September, clear blue, cloudless skies, day after day after day. At first, the prolonged summer was welcomed and cheered, giving girls more time to work on their tans, motorcyclists more time to rev in their crotches and golfers more time to whack their clubs. The heat parched lawns and scorched gardens, but people didn’t care and didn’t worry; we were conditioned to associate heat with fun and summer and good times, beers on the patio, backyard barbeques and outdoor pools. Any extra heat up north was always considered good heat.

But by the middle of September, the endless parade of clear blue, cloudless skies and rainless nights started to wear thin. It was starting to feel a bit weird that the weather hadn’t turned yet. The entire West Coast of America was burning up in the heat, pulling hard on the electrical grid to keep their AC units pumping day and night. The state of Texas was literally burning up, small town after small town being consumed by out-of-control wildfires, the worst in Texas’ long, fiery history. Entire communities were burnt out within days as the fires were not easily contained. Drought stricken and fire ravaged, Texans cried out for a reprieve—but the rain didn’t come.

The power outages caused by Hurricane Irene were also still fresh in people’s minds, especially for how long it took officials to restore power after a disaster they knew was coming at least five days in advance. Wasn’t there an operable contingency plan to cope with such a disaster and to ensure that we could survive a basic tropical storm with the lights on? What if this were a terrorist attack, people started to say, spooked by thoughts of the upcoming 10th anniversary of 9/11, scared that there was possibly going to be a “commemorative” attack by a terrorist group—who are big on keeping anniversaries, didn’t you know? Would we be writhing around in the dark, stuck in traffic jams, waiting in long lines at the grocery store since all the tills and Interac machines are down, when the fatal blow is delivered? Where was all the vaunted “preparedness” so often praised by government officials?

And then the ultimate blunder: on September 8, the power suddenly went out all across California, Arizona and New Mexico, a single, fatal human error that revealed the absolute defenselessness of the American infrastructure. An electrical worker in Yuma, Arizona, was performing a routine maintenance procedure at the most inopportune time possible and effectively knocked out power to over five million people. Runway landing lights at the airports in San Diego went out, grounding all flights and forcing rerouting and cancellations. Traffic lights went instantly black, causing accidents and jams and snarl-ups for miles upon miles. People often just abandoned their sweltering, stalled vehicles and walked the rest of the way in the unforgiving heat. All those AC units that were working overtime went silent, turning small apartments into sweat lodges and high-rise condos into sun-baked towers of doom.

Sweaty, frustrated Californians took to their Twitter accounts and complained about the heat non-stop, acting as though the only relief they could possibly imagine came out of a tiny metal cube stuck in their window. But where could they go? Elevators were inoperable, stores were closing, roads were impassable, trains weren’t running—without electricity, human activity had come to a grinding halt. What can you really do in the city during a blackout? Nothing but hide out at home and wait for things to start moving again. Without electricity, humanity reverted back to a strange state of lawlessness, where looting suddenly became a real likelihood and people started stockpiling canned goods and bottled water in case they have to “survive” for awhile, meaning they were planning to crouch in their basement and eat baked beans from a can with a fork.

Is it really that easy to immobilize us? Does our civilization really stand a chance in the face of a real catastrophe if a prolonged blackout is all it takes to totally disrupt our everyday functionings? What if the power wasn’t ever going to come back on? Back-up generators can only last for so long. Would we even know what to do with ourselves anymore? No phones, no computers, no cars, no fridges, no stoves, no grocery stores, no restaurants, no LRT, no TV, no movie theaters, no alarm clocks, no email, no Twitter—as a culture, we’d be totally paralyzed and defenseless, almost innocently so.

A single day, the anniversary of America’s darkest hour, brings all these thoughts to the forefront of America’s collective consciousness and splatters them across newspapers and TV channels, but will it last? When the sun rises tomorrow, will people feel vindicated and just go back to the dreary mundaneness of their lives, cutting coupons, riding buses to work and doing crossword puzzles to kill time? Where will the acute self-awareness of our absolute vulnerability be next week? People blink and forget these thoughts all too quick, until another calamity reminds us of how close we are to the brink of collapse. Let us hope this time it’s different.

August 29, 2011

Everyone expected Hurricane Irene to be a bigger deal. It had been built-up for days, weeks even, fed by satellite images of Irene’s enormous width and doomsday reports from eminent scientists. America was supposed to get absolutely hammered. Even Obama was convinced, not to mention Mayor Bloomberg of New York, who ordered the complete evacuation of lower Manhattan and other low-lying areas threatened by flooding. The City That Never Sleep’s subways were completely halted, an unprecedented event in New York’s history, but the reality of severely flooded tunnels and power outages was too dangerous to ignore.

On Saturday night, August 27, the whole of Times Square was barren, not a car or cab in sight—probably for the first time ever. A few brave citizens and curious tourists poked around and took pictures, recognizing that this was a momentous occasion in New York’s history. A few stalwart Canadians, no doubt schooled on too many Labatt’s Out of the Blue commercials, decided to take advantage of the empty asphalt and struck up a spontaneous game of street hockey, playing shirts vs skins in the middle of a hurricane, true Canadian-style. New York cops quickly dispersed the crazy Canucks, not quite sure what to make of their foolhardy abandon.

Hurricane Irene lashed the East Coast with rain and howling winds, ripping off roofs, toppling countless trees and flooding streets and basements. At one point, over 8 million people were without power because of the storm, a number that stayed strong as the storm ripped through large swaths of densely populated cities and neighborhoods. Irene did most of her damage in Connecticut and Vermont, and by the time she reached New York, Irene had been downgraded to a category 1 storm with only 65 mph winds, which thankfully wasn’t as scary. Instead of wreaking the widespread damage to New York that was feared, Hurricane Irene simply inundated the region with heavy precipitation and lasting floodwaters—minor damages compared to what had been predicted and espoused by government officials. Most people were able to return to their houses by Sunday afternoon, Irene leaving behind her a clear, cloudless, blue sky, ideal for sunning oneself after having been cooped up indoors all weekend. So what was the big deal all about?

That very evening, Mayor Bloomberg was held up to the harsh light of media scrutiny, blamed for over-reacting about a relatively innocuous little hurricane. The catch phrase splashed across the news was how “over-hyped” Irene was, like the incoming natural disaster was supposed to play out like a big-budget Hollywood action movie, with tidal waves and tornadoes and lightning strikes. The problem was that the American public had been fed a Hurricane “preview” that promised them death and destruction, and the only payoff they got was this measly rain and some washed-out roadways. Laa dee da, mr weatherman, thanks for the dire forecast, but no thanks. Next time you force us to evacuate our houses and spend our hard-earned money on needless hotel rentals, your bloody storm better deliver! We don’t appreciate these false alarms, getting us all scared for no reason at all. It’s like the “Boy Who Cried Wolf”—don’t cry wolf too many times, or we’ll just tune you out and call you an idiot and take our chances, and then when we all die next time, just think how bad you’ll feel!

But the problem with the Boy Who Cried Wolf analogy is that it presupposes there’s only 1 wolf to cry about, so don’t blow your chance or else when the real wolf arrives, nobody will heed your warning. But what if there’s 10 wolves coming? Wouldn’t you want your boy to cry “wolf” 10 times? The U.S. is forecasting 7-10 more hurricanes to develop between now and November (Hurricane Katia is already building), 2-5 of which are expected to be “major” storms like Hurricane Irene, striking at various points along the East Coast. I would hope that U.S. Government officials have the cajones to cry wolf at least 1 more time this season, though whether people heed the warning next time is the real question.

News agencies, as we’ve come to expect, rather than dutifully reporting the news, shamelessly fanned the flames of public expectation, feeding its viewers the very worst of the predictions and generally sensationalizing the event beyond realistic outcomes. Afterwards, one media pundit, in a rare moment of self-awareness, summed it up best when he said, “We no longer report the news; we deal in doom.” This has been a growing trend over the past decade as “news” has become synonymous with “death and destruction” in the vein of Fox News, reporting most of all on natural disasters, killing sprees, riots, robberies, human misery and, sometimes at the very end of the newscast, cute zoo animals. For Irene, all the major news sources sent their reporters right into the hurricane’s maelstrom so they could deliver the requisite being-pummeled-by-rain-in-my-flimsy-poncho headlines, which inevitably makes the news more current and exciting. Some stodgy old news anchor reporting on the catastrophe from the safety and comfort of the studio just doesn’t cut it anymore. The public wants their news to be the ultimate reality show, even more shocking than Jersey Shore and Big Brother, and by God, do news stations compete to try to make it happen.

Luckily for everyone who was disappointed by Irene, there’s a real howitzer in the near future. If you’ve already battened down the hatches, don’t bother unbattening—the destructive payoff will be here anon.

August 25, 2011

The summer had been long and hot, scorching days with nary any relief in sight. The days were scalding, with temperatures peaking at close to 40 degrees Celcius, and the nights offered little respite from the heat, staying around 25 degrees even after the sun had gone down. Power use spiked substantially as people cranked their AC units 24/7, hoping to gain a little rest after burning outside all day. But nobody complained. Here in Canada, because of our harsh, cold, long winters, nice days were at a premium and had to be enjoyed while they could. What’s a little sunstroke during the summer when I have all winter to recoup and convalesce? Bring it on, they said, welcoming the heat with open arms and sunburnt shoulders. Jokes about global warming were often heard, people using the faux levity to ignore the true, harsh realities of our burning planet.

Into August, the heat persisted, but Mother Nature had reached her tipping point. Massive storm cells started developing nightly, bringing intense winds and harsh downpours, crackling lightning and booming thunder. Tornados ripped through small lakeside communities, wreaking havoc on weekenders and camping enthusiasts, reminding them of the fickle nature of our great planet. The hot weather had made the East Coast a bubbling kettle of unstable air masses, ready to explode at the drop of a hat. More and more tornadoes appeared each night, swirling and brewing and destroying everyone’s sense of safety and comfort. Hot days no longer meant harmful UV rays tinting our bodies a beautiful golden hue but hinted at the possibility of another destructive night of huddling in basements and clutching loved ones. The sense of joy about the heat quickly turned to fear as people started to dread the hot-pot afternoons and lingering humidity. Was another vicious storm a-brewing?

Then there were the earthquakes. A rare 6.8 magnitude quake rattled the eastern seaboard, originating in Virginia but felt as far away as New York City and Toronto. Buildings shook and swayed, the Washington Monument, that great obelisk erected by America’s Freemason forefathers, cracked and crumbled, and National Post offices in Toronto were quickly evacuated, leading to a slight lull in the news reporting for the day. A rare quake it was, seeing as the East Coast has no known faultlines and isn’t as prone to shakes as the West Coast, which straddles the San Andreas Fault. The shallowness of the quake also allowed it to travel faster along the surface, reaching more communities than a “normal” quake. But the quake’s speed wasn’t as quick as the Twitter posts alerting other users to the possible danger. In some places, people knew of the quake before they even felt a single tremor. The wonders of technology, indeed.

But the next day, it was all business as usual, people espousing the same faux levity and black humor jokes about the quakes and storms as they did global warming, as if laughing in the face of tragedies made them less scary. It was cool to make fun of the Earth’s growing instability, the hipsters proclaimed, using hashtag remarks like #FattyFellOutOfBedAgain to explain away the quakes and #GassyAuntCausesTornado to lighten the mood. Seriousness wasn’t condoned unless you were a doomsayer, but then you were ridiculed for jumping to conclusions and making mountains out of molehills. Quakes happen all the time, they would say, and this one didn’t even spill my coffee on my white jeans, so who’s to worry?

But that there is the real question: who really worries anymore? Our self-assured invincibility will surely be our downfall.

May 25, 2011

The ash cloud billowed high into the air, shooting up over 20 kilometers into the atmosphere and blocking out the sun for miles around.

The Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland had been actively erupting for 4 straight days now, since early Sunday morning; but strangely, nobody seemed the least bit concerned about it. Of course, we had experienced the exact same scenario just last year when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland had erupted in late April and wreaked havoc on international air travel for 5 long, costly days. So maybe people were still too jaded from the recency of the last event to really care this time. “More travel delays” was all anyone could think about.

The ash cloud swirled up through the atmosphere, buoyed by strong winds and jet streams, and spread out like a pallid blanket over the northern hemisphere, dimming the sun and bringing storm clouds. Ash rained down in black raindrops, staining car windshields and ruining everyone’s white pants;–but it washed right out the very next day, so nobody really paid it any mind. Silly volcano!

Flight plans soon returned to normal, and people quickly forgot about the newest ash cloud, producing barely a ripple in their consciousness. Besides, The Hangover Part 2 just came out in theatres; they had to pre-buy their tickets online. Life continued as per usual.

May 21, 2011

The day of the Rapture started just like any other.

It was a Saturday, and most people hadn’t even heard the dire warning being broadcast by Family Radio, a radio network run by Harold Camping, a grizzled 89-year-old, self-professed Bible exegete. If they had heard about Camping’s Rapture prediction, it was probably because they were still hung over from a Facebook-organized ‘Rapture party’ they had attended the night before, mocking the foreboding news by partying like there would be no tomorrow.

Some of the more staunch Rapture believers woke up in luxury hotels with glasses of champagne in their hands, determined to enjoy every last minute—not to mention every last penny—they had in this mortal coil. What was the use of retirement funds and long-term GICs when the end of the world was nigh? If I’m going out, I’m going out in style, they said.

Camping had predicted Earth-shattering earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and tornadoes;–but God’s plan was more sublime than that. In this case, it wasn’t an Old Testament God at work, throwing up pillars of fire, turning rivers to blood or sending out swarms of locusts. There was nothing flashy about this Rapture. In fact, other than a few suicide cults, the media had nothing much to sink their teeth into.

Thus the true Rapture took place right underneath everyone’s noses.

By mid-evening, Family Radio’s Rapture prophecy was officially declared a ‘dud’ during the dinner news hour, and Judgment Day was ‘called off’ to excessive derision and mockery. Harold Camping’s name was dragged back and forth through the mud on primetime TV where everybody could watch, publicly deriding him and calling him a ‘phony’ and a ‘false teacher.’ Late-night television hosts lampooned the ridiculous prophecies and made jokes about Christianity. Those foolhardy followers who had cashed in their life-savings to live like kings and queens suddenly faced a very bleak future, leading to a rash of post-Rapture suicides over the next few days.

As the sun finally set on a day of convoluted expectations and profound disappointments, the world returned to a state of rest.

The next morning, people woke up and returned to their normal routines, most of them oblivious to the changes that had taken place while they slept. They turned on the morning news and saw the same news anchors they were used to. They went to church and prayed with the same pastors they usually did. They turned on the car radio and heard the same songs they always listened to. Life seemed to be chugging along exactly the same as it had been the day before, so nobody thought twice about the fall-out from the so-called ‘Rapture.’

But over the next few days, flying under the radar of the goldfish-minded media outlets, the number of missing person cases more than tripled. These missing persons weren’t high-profile businessmen, politicians, archbishops or anybody else in the public eye, so nobody other than their families and friends took any notice. But rather, the missing persons were beloved grandparents, innocent children, good Samaritans and the mentally ill—they were the meek, the humble, the generous of spirit and the pure of heart. They were people free of ego, not prideful nor greedy, who cared genuinely about the well-being of others and gave generously of themselves every day without question or complaint.

And all these wonderful people had simply vanished into thin air.

Meanwhile, the rest of us continued on as per usual, completely ignorant to the fact that we were now living on borrowed time.