'I'm not willing to risk a whole lot more'

July 23, 2020

Welcome to the links edition of My World’s on Fire, highlighting some of the reporting I’m doing or following in this space and offering the occasional deeper-dive into that work. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this new format, and, of course, on the stories below! Leave a comment here, or find me on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram.

The Nic’s staff prepping to reopen (photo courtesy of Nic’s Facebook)

Last September, I got a chance to checkout Nic’s, a soon-to-be-opened restaurant on a nearly empty stretch of Skyway Road in Paradise, California. It was one of the few new developments in a town virtually destroyed by the 2018 Camp Fire, a blaze that burned through thousands of buildings in a matter of hours, leaving the land scorched and scarred nearly a year later.

Prepping for the launch, the restaurant’s team was engaged in the ballet of side-stepping and “behind you” passing that anyone who has worked in the industry would recognize. The owner, Nicki Jones, and manager, April Kelly, were both survivors of the fire, so chaos had sort of become their comfort zone – if they were nervous about the restaurant’s launch, it didn’t show. I interviewed them in the empty dining room of the restaurant, and their excitement was palpable.

Speaking to both of them last month, a lot had changed.

While Nic’s struggles with the same difficult choices restaurants across the country are making, “for us, there’s just another layer of what’s on the line,” Kelly explained. Jones summed it up:

“I'm 75. I've reinvested in my town. I'm rebuilding my home, but I'm at a place where, since none of us know how this is going to play out, I'm not willing to risk a whole lot more.”

As the restaurant readied for a socially-distanced summer, I spoke with Jones and Kelly about the challenges – both expected and completely unforeseen – their restaurant has faced in just its first ten months. With so many communities across the country either recovering from or now facing threats of natural hazards during this hot summer, the issues Nic’s has faced are unfortunately not all that unique, and I hope you’ll give their experience a read.

More to 📚 📺 🎧

  • Many thanks to all who reached out about last week’s newsletter on #NoNaturalDisasters! For more on the topic, check out this new post from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (Prevention Web)

  • “FEMA comes in and says, ‘Yeah, it looks good. You saved your town. Congratulations. Peace out.’” On government assistance (or lack thereof) and insurance policies (Politico)

  • These Instagram photos of a pyrocumulonimbus cloud (AKA “fire cloud”) created by the Hog Fire are both breathtaking and terrifying (More on that phenomenon from SFGate)

  • “As irrational as they knew it was, they felt as though the fires were stalking them.” An incredible account of the psychological toll wildfires are having on Californians (The Atlantic, please note this includes descriptions of self-harm)

  • You know I’m fascinated by neighbors who prep together, so I loved this podcast about the town of Manzanita, Oregon (MIT Technology Review)

  • “How do you reconstruct the history of a place and a people whose importance has been deemed negligible (at best) by those in power?” The Yellow House is next up on my reading list, and this review – itself beautifully written itself – has made me even more eager for my copy to arrive (The Nation)

And, as always…

here’s a little something for reading to the end.

My World’s on Fire is a free newsletter about disasters from journalist Colleen Hagerty. My goal is to help you feel a little bit more at ease about our unpredictable world by equipping you with in-depth reporting and insights. I can only do that with your continued support, so please subscribe and share!