Water Part 1 – Water is Life.
The Sioux tribe of Standing Rock, North Dakota is protesting and fighting in court a pipeline green-lighted for construction crossing several states to Texas. It is planned to cross the entire US from North to South and go under the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers and possibly could contaminate their waters.
Water is life. We know that we cannot live without water. Yet, we envision mega pipelines like Keystone and DAPL (North Dakota Pipeline), carrying millions of gallons of fuel across the entire North American continent, because we put fuel above our most essential need.
How can this be? We must be in complete denial about our dependency. We are so dependent on water that we don’t want to think about it? Are we prepared for failures and emergencies?
Once in a while, after an earthquake or when city infrastructure or a city well doesn’t work, we feel it. The first three days, when there is no water coming into our homes from city aqueducts or wells to our faucets, we trust it will come back soon. That’s how it is, right? City engineers and workers will work tirelessly around the clock to restore water to us. What if they can’t?
I experienced the Los Angeles ’94 earthquake in Santa Clarita Valley, 15 minutes drive North of Northridge, the earthquakes’ epicenter. I had just graduated, when the earth shook for about 20 seconds at 6.7 magnitude in the middle of the night that January. We fell out of bed, literally, and fridges fell over. I watched the bedroom window bulge out into the room and move back into place, others burst. It not only cost 57 lives and injured 8.700 people, but also broke major infrastructure like roads, freeway bridges, buildings collapsed, power towers fell ripping power lines and water pipes broke.
I was in art school at the time and my roommate, a filmmaker, was going to shoot her film the following day. Our fridge was stocked with food and drinks for the shoot and luckily stayed standing. The day following the earthquake, friends came down from the school dorms to stay at our place, because we didn’t have much damage in our old, wooden house and we had food. It was an impromptu sleepover, all floors were covered with sleepers, nobody wanted to sleep in the beds. We had food but no running water. The situation escalated fast and we went to the bathroom at the upper end of the large yard. The stores ran out of bottled water on day three and the National Guard started to fly in water. On day 5 around 40,000 people were still without public water. Supply helicopters flew day and night. Felt like an apocalyptic movie. I fled to friends in Pasadena, who lived one-hour drive from the epicenter and had running water. The school was toast, its interior had to be completely renovated. Classes were relocated all over town as far downtown LA. Mind you that this was nothing compared to the devastating effects of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, when the nations capital Port-au-Prince was hit with a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude. Over 160.000 people died, 280.000 buildings collapsed.
Disasters shake up our perception of our sheltered life. They highlight our vulnerability. Our needs will soon be taken care of in a country like the U.S., one would think, but Hurricane Katrina made clear that emergency response depends on the postal code. As Haiti New Orleans struggled for years to rebuild and heal. In Haiti, the reality of life is very different, fuel and potable water had been scarce even before the earthquake, Haitians knew how to help themselves, but the disaster overwhelmed all. This fall, Haiti was severely hit by Hurricane Matthew and fell into another disastrous crisis.
Water Series
Water Part 2 – Water in Puerto Peñasco.
Water Part 3 – Conquering the World.
