It has been four months since the Oct. 8 north bay wildfires, and we continue to look both backward and forward. The very early steps of rebuilding and recovery have begun. Resources and strategies continue to be bundled. And the drastically altered picture that is Sonoma County’s future is beginning to come into focus. It is both daunting and exhilarating.
The historic task of rebuilding thousands of homes and properties will cost a few billion dollars. Accepting the grander mission to rebuild a stronger, more resilient and more inclusive Sonoma County will be priceless.
Among the first lessons that have been forged from the terrible days of wildfire death and mass destruction is that “we own this.” The next several years of response, rebuilding and rebirth is not just about replacing burned houses and neighborhoods or compensating displaced workers and local businesses. It’s not just the need of making more donations to charity and recovery funds. What we all own together, ultimately, will be the kind of future we build in place of the Sonoma County that existed before the wildfires.
Sonoma County already had a housing crisis before the wildfires. More than 40 percent of county families could not afford record-high rents or housing prices. Our pre-fire economy was not supporting enough living wage jobs and our food pantry lines had already become endless.
Last week at the annual State of the County economic summit gathering north county Supervisor James Gore, Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey and others reminded a capacity crowd of 500 business, civic and government leaders that our collective needs for housing, infrastructure improvements, social programs and environmental initiatives have now been multiplied by the wildfire scars and losses. What we previously had recognized as “needs” are now “imperatives,” they said.
More than just houses, property, landscapes and infrastructure were destroyed. The underlying tax base also was singed and damaged. Paying for our schools, public safety departments, municipal services and community programs will be impacted.
Local government priorities must now be shifted and all of us will have to do with less of something. While the wildfire recovery continues, public services for homelessness, mental health and others will be cut. (This has already happened.) School budgets and teacher pay could be impacted. Government support for social, cultural and civic projects could face years of delays or deficits.
The October wildfires burned over 110,000 acres of Sonoma County land and parks. The fires destroyed 7,012 structures and added over 12,000 people to the county’s homeless population. Five months later, the fate of these thousands of families and individuals is still mostly unsettled.
Economist Jerry Nickelsburg told the breakfast summit that Sonoma County’s economy has been “soaring” and will continue to be strong, even during the wildfire recovery. Thousands of jobs will be needed to rebuild destroyed neighborhoods, but also to build as many as 19,000 additional houses that were needed before the wildfire and now have become imperative.
“We must use these wildfires to forge a new resolve,” Gore said. “We must own our future and not let it own us. We must be ready for the next fire or flood. That’s not my vision; that has to be our vision — the vision of ‘we’.”
At the close of the economic breakfast, Ana Lugo, of the social justice group, North Bay Organizing Project, addressed the audience as a self-described “young brown woman.”
She spoke about collective responsibility to an audience of the county’s most privileged and most powerful leaders. She passionately reminded them that their privilege and power comes with added portions of responsibility. She was given the only standing ovation of the day. We took that as a reassuring sign of the commitment it will take to build a more resolute and inclusive new Sonoma County.
