Growing the Movement for Mutual Aid: Invite Trainers & Prepare Your Community for Grassroots Direct Action Disaster Response

By Mutual Aid Disaster Relief - It's Going Down, October 19, 2017

Climate Chaos is happening.  Adaptation and preparation are essential.  Grassroots disaster response will be more and more necessary as we see more catastrophes – infrastructure, economic, and ecological collapses – and as corporations and governments seek only to capitalize on the crises.

That is why we created Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR) – an organization inspired by Common Ground, Occupy Sandy, the Standing Rock Water Protectors, and the long history of diverse grassroots direct actions seeking to make a better world possible.  We are developing and training a standing network of community organizers and volunteer disaster responders, continually growing in size and efficacy, which will be at-the-ready to respond to natural and unnatural disasters – from hurricanes to hate rallies, from mudslides to mine waste spills – and to help survivors, especially those in marginalized communities to survive, to restore their homes, to build their power, and to vision a more sustainable future.

We will be conducting a series of promotional and capacity-building tours, in which we will educate about how natural storms turn into unnatural disasters, and train affinity groups on subjects like “Solidarity Not Charity,” “Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness,” and “Building Power in Collaboration.”

We are beginning to make plans for one tour in spring 2018, and another in fall 2018. We will choose our regions based on interest, but our strategy emphasizes covering as many locations as possible, and reaching a diverse mix of urban and rural communities.

A typical visit will span 2-3 days, initiated by an entertaining illustrated story-telling (using Beehive Collective graphics, of course!) about corporate colonization, disaster capitalism, climate change, and the vibrant and diverse movements in resistance to these deadly forces (it will be similar to the innovative “ROCK BOTTOM in the Age of Extreme Resource Extraction” presentation, but using new custom illustrations!).  This will be followed by intensive training in “Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness” the “Solidarity Not Charity” model, and “Building Power From Below” reinforced with a wide variety of skills.  And this is just the beginning – new local branches of MADR will be supported by the growing network and future trainings.

Please contact tnorman000[at]gmail.com asap if you are interested in hosting a speaking event and/or workshop.  We can discuss possibilities, and then we will plan our route based on where our work is most strategic.  We may not be able to visit everyone in 2018, but we will continue trainings in many regions, so please do not hesitate to get in touch just to indicate your interest or to ask a question!

Please join us as we create a new flood, one made of the overwhelming power of compassion and collaboration, of vision, inspiration, and possibility.

La'Sonya Edwards, an inmate who fights fires in the Southern part of the state, told the New York Times in August: "The pay is ridiculous. There are some days we are worn down to the core. And this isn't that different from slave conditions."

Changes in sentencing designed to decrease prison overcrowding have led, incredibly enough, to the "problem"--as the San Francisco Chronicle described it back in September--of the state "heading into the height of this year's fire season with a drop in the number of what one official called 'the Marines' of wildfire fighters" because "not enough inmates are joining up."

The lack of public resources to deal with fires--including the absence of an adequate emergency alert system, as well as infrastructure upkeep--is what made the situation that preceded the fires more deadly and destructive.

As officials search for a cause, there is speculation that downed power lines may have sparked the initial blazes. Records show that Sonoma emergency dispatchers sent fire crews to at least 10 reports of downed power lines and exploding transformers at the time the fires were first reported.

The electrical utility PG&E claims these downed lines were the result of "hurricane strength," 75-mile-per-hour winds. But according to the Mercury News, weather station records show that "wind speeds were only about half that level as the lines started to come down"--suggesting that lack of maintenance was a likelier culprit.

Other human factors--which officials had years of prior warning about--also likely added to the horror.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Napa, Sonoma and Butte Counties--three of those hardest hit--were warned years ago about improperly maintained roads and staffing that could compound such emergency situations. A 2013 civil grand jury report in Sonoma, for example, warned that because of neglect and underfunding, many rural roads had "deteriorated to a crisis condition" and could "hamper emergency response, evacuation, medical care, and fire response efforts."

Lack of aggressive fire regulations in building construction also added to the destruction. As the Los Angeles Times reported, one of the reasons that the destruction in Santa Rosa's Coffey Park was so severe was because it was considered outside of the "very severe" fire hazard zone just five miles away--meaning the buildings in the area were exempt from regulations designed to make structures more fire resistant.

REGARDLESS OF what sparked the fires or created the conditions that made containment harder, at its root, the Northern California disaster is the result of a compounding climate crisis that, unless taken seriously, is going to continue to cause successive "unprecedented catastrophes".

The fires expose how, despite the end to the state's prolonged drought, California has not escaped the worst effects of climate change.

Last winter, heavy rains replenished much of the state's water reserves and caused officials to declare that the drought had ended. But in fact, this contributed to a deadlier fire season--all the greenery produced by the rains dried out during a hot summer and turned into starter fuel for the fires. This, combined with shifting weather patterns and high winds, combined to make the fires harder to contain.

As Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and co-author of a report linking global warming to increased wildfires said on Democracy Now!:

The fires are really being driven by a big high-pressure system that is sitting over the coasts of the U.S. and driving winds from the east to the west, bringing very dry, warm air from the deserts of Nevada and Arizona out to the coast. And by the time, the air gets to the coast, it's compressed down to sea level. It's very warm and very dry. It pulls the moisture out of vegetation, makes it ready to burn.

Without the kind of controlled burns traditionally practiced by Native American tribes, such fires are inevitable--whether sparked by man-made or natural causes.

Meanwhile, left-wing author Mike Davis noted that the predictable response to such disasters--rebuilding more suburban sprawl without addressing the loss of an agricultural "buffer zone"--will only exacerbate future fires, even in a state whose leaders pride themselves on being environmentally conscious. As Davis wrote:

[California Gov.] Jerry Brown's California enters this new age with a halo over its head. We "get" climate change and thumb our noses at the mad denialist in the White House. Our governor advocates the Paris [climate] standards with rare passion and sends our anti-carbon missionaries to the far corners of the earth...And we continue to send urban sprawl into our fire-dependent ecosystems with the expectation that firefighters will risk their lives to defend each new McMansion...

This is the deadly conceit behind mainstream environmental politics in California: you say fire, I say climate change, and we both ignore the financial and real-estate juggernaut that drives the suburbanization of our increasingly flammable wildlands.

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AMID THE horror, however, there are also glimpses of decency and hope--in the heroic actions of exhausted and overworked firefighters, community members and other volunteers coming together to care for each other.

Multiple relief funds have been set up for the fire victims, including the "UndocuFund for Fire Relief in Sonoma County," which was launched by a coalition of immigrant service providers and advocates specifically to "provide direct funding to undocumented immigrants and their families" who will otherwise not qualify for government assistance.

Other labor and community groups are coming together to help organize events to aid those dealing with their grief and loss, like one recently held by the North Bay Organizing Project, in conjunction with the Graton Day Labor Center (Centro Laboral de Graton) and North Bay Jobs With Justice.

As Sonoma County resident and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 member Julia Rapkin described to Socialist Worker, even in the midst of this horrible event, residents reached out to help each other:

People checked on neighbors to see if they needed assistance evacuating, using trailers to even help evacuate farm animals. People knocked on doors. Over the last few days, when you were shopping, cashiers at Trader Joe's asked if you are okay and are you safe. With everyone you see in the street and in the store, there's a sense of real solidarity and people caring for each other, which is really beautiful.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.