We are not ready to confront the next catastrophe
A year into the pandemic, our performance defending against COVID-19 does not bode well for how we will deal with future catastrophic threats.
The devastation from the coronavirus highlights the need for all levels of government to prepare for, and respond in a coordinated fashion to, potential disasters.
Cybersecurity. Earthquakes. Climate change. Pandemics. Water and power reliability.
All high-profile challenges that demand high-level attention. Yet, when asked, disaster planners largely agree: We are not ready.
The failures largely stem from a lack of investment in infrastructure and public health.
The solutions begin with ending the gridlock that has kept needed funding from being invested in projects and programs that scream out for attention. The League of California Cities estimates that it would cost nearly $500 billion to meet the state’s current infrastructure needs.
Given the growing division that continues in Washington, the temptation is to conclude that we are no longer capable of tackling our biggest problems. But American history is replete with decadeslong periods of stalemate and inaction followed by rapid advances.
“Sociologists and people who study these things say scaring people doesn’t work,” said Keith Knudsen, deputy director of the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center. “People become so numbed that they throw up their hands and don’t do anything. It’s going to take all of us doing our part to get us prepared.”
Cybersecurity
A February hacker attack on the water-treatment plant in Oldsmar, Florida, should alarm government officials at every level.
The hacker accessed the city’s water treatment system and tried to increase the levels of lye in the water to more than 100 times the normal level, potentially poisoning thousands of residents. Fortunately, a city employee detected the problem and restored the system to normal levels before any water was contaminated.
Efforts to hack government facilities have doubled in recent years, threatening a wide range of public utilities, including water, power and transportation systems.
It’s imperative that local, state and federal officials invest in the latest technology to thwart cyberattacks and develop a safety-first culture that includes multiple layers of protection for critical systems.
Earthquakes
Since the 1989 Loma Prieta temblor, the Bay Area has invested more than $70 billion in earthquake preparedness. That includes improvements to transportation infrastructure ($19.6 billion), acute-care facilities at hospitals ($18.8 billion), school facilities ($8 billion to $12 billion), water-supply systems ($5.9 billion), and electric power and gas lines ($3.1 billion).
Despite that effort, more needs to be done in all of those areas before the next major earthquake strikes.
One of the biggest worries is that individual property owners are not sufficiently investing in seismic upgrades to reduce the danger of homes falling off their foundations or water and gas lines breaking.
Climate change
California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment in 2018 reported that sea level in the Bay Area has risen more than 8 inches in the last 100 years. The assessment also warned of longer California droughts that will wreak havoc on water supplies, ecosystems and agriculture, and increase the intensity and frequency of wildfires.
Meanwhile, Bay Area airports, roads and railways are concentrated near the shoreline, where flooding from sea level rise and storm surge is a major vulnerability.
California has been a leader in trying to mitigate the impacts of climate change, including being one of the first states to set a goal of being carbon neutral.
But the past four years of inaction at the national level is a prime example of the dampening effect when federal and state governments fail to collaborate.
Pandemics
The COVID-19 outbreak doesn’t reduce the chances of future pandemics. The nation’s failure to sufficiently invest in public health greatly increases the chances that we will go through this again, that we won’t be able to tamp down future viruses in time to prevent them from spreading around the world.
The American Journal of Health reports that in the United States federal, state and local agencies spend approximately $250 per person annually on the public health system, or roughly $82 billion. Meanwhile, the total hospital cost for dealing with COVID-19 patients for the past year is estimated at more than $600 billion.
Bill Gates said in January that the world needs a massive global effort to prepare for future pandemics, which includes investing in scientific development, mass testing, a global pandemic alert system and a team of infectious disease first responders. He’s right.
Water and power reliability
California has made zero progress in decades on its urgent need to secure a reliable source of water for future generations. Gov. Gavin Newsom continues his misguided quest to spend more than $13 billion for a Delta tunnel that won’t add a single drop of water to the state’s supply. California’s power shutdowns last summer showed the need for a comprehensive strategy that will ensure power reliability and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The pandemic will very likely not be the worst disaster Bay Area residents face in the years ahead. We must start preparing. The devastating impacts of COVID-19 show the importance of acknowledging and confronting the threats and challenges ahead so we’re not so unprepared when the next disaster strikes.
This has been one of the most quietly consequential weeks in recent American politics.
The COVID-19 relief law that was just enacted is one of the most important pieces of legislation of our lifetimes. As Eric Levitz writes in New York magazine, the poorest fifth of households will see their income rise by 20%; a family of four with one working and one unemployed parent will receive $12,460 in benefits. Child poverty will be cut in half.
The law stretches far beyond COVID-19 relief. There’s a billion for national service programs. Black farmers will receive over $4 billion in what looks like a step toward reparations. There’s a huge expansion of health insurance subsidies. Many of these changes, like the child tax credit, may well become permanent.
As Michael Hendrix of the Manhattan Institute notes, America spent $4.8 trillion in today’s dollars fighting World War II. Over the past year, America has spent over $5.5 trillion fighting the pandemic.
In a polarized era, the legislation is widely popular. Threequarters of Americans support the law, including 60% of Republicans, according to a Morning Consult survey. The Republican members of Congress voted against it, but the GOP shows no interest in turning this into a great partisan battle. As I began to write this on Thursday morning, the Fox News homepage had only two stories on the COVID-19 relief bill and dozens on things like the royal family and cancel culture.
Somehow low-key Joe Biden gets yawns when he promotes progressive policies that would generate howls if promoted by a President Bernie Sanders or a President Elizabeth Warren.
This moment is like 1981, the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, except in reverse. It’s not just that government is heading in a new direction; it’s that the whole paradigm of the role of government in American life is shifting. Biden is not causing these tectonic plates to shift, but he is riding them.
Reaganism was the right response to the stagflation of the 1970s, but Bidenism is a sensible response to a very different set of economic problems. Let one set of statistics stand in for hundreds: According to a team of researchers led by Raj Chetty, in 1970, 90% of 30-year-olds were making more than their parents had at that age. By 2010, only 50% were.
There was a premise through American history that if you worked hard, you would earn economic security. That’s not as true for millennials and Gen-Z or many other people across America.
These realities have created a different emotional climate that the pandemic has magnified — a climate of insecurity and precarity. These realities have also produced an intellectual revolution.
It was assumed, even only a decade ago, that the Fed could not just print money with abandon. It was assumed that the government could not rack up huge debt without spurring inflation and crippling debt payment costs. Both of these concerns have been thrown out the window by large numbers of thinkers. We’ve seen years of high debt and loose monetary policy, but inflation has not come.
So the restraints have been cast aside. We are now experiencing monetary and fiscal policies that would have been unimaginable a decade ago.
The role of government is being redefined. There is now an assumption that government should step in to reduce economic insecurity and inequality. Even Republicans like Tom Cotton and Mitt Romney, for example, are cooking up a plan to actively boost wages for American workers.
This is not socialism. This is the Transfer State: government redistributing massive amounts of money by cutting checks to people and having faith that they spend it in the right ways.
Both parties are adjusting to the new paradigm. With the wind at their backs, Democrats are concluding that Biden’s decision to eschew bipartisanship to pass a relief package is better than Barack Obama’s attempts to attract it. I don’t know if the filibuster will go away, but it certainly looks like it will be watered down.
I’m worried about a world in which we spend borrowed money with abandon. The skeptical headline on the final preretirement column of the great Washington Post economics columnist Steven Pearlstein resonated with me: “In Democrats’ progressive paradise, borrowing is free, spending pays for itself and interest rates never rise.”
But income inequality, widespread child poverty and economic precarity are the problems of our time. It’s worth taking a risk to tackle all this. At first Biden seemed like the third chapter of the Clinton/Obama centerleft era. But this is something new.
“Idon’twantto go into debt for things like food. But if I don’t have an income, I will go into debt for everyday things. And then that becomes a burden for my family.” — Justin Blea, 37, of Albany, who lost his job at Oakland International Airport last March, on hopes for stimulus and added unemployment checks approved by Congress and the White House this week.
LATEST LINE >> WHO’S UP AND WHO’S DOWN NANCY PELOSI
San Francisco’s Speaker of the House secures historic win for President Biden and Democrats, overseeing the narrow passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act, with $1,400 checks for most Americans.
AUTO INSURERS
State insurance commissioner says insurance industry overcharged California drivers by hundreds of millions of dollars in past year amid less driving and accidents, and orders a refund plan by April 30.
BARS
New state rules allow bars to open outdoors when counties hit the orange tier, which is expected in the next few weeks across the Bay Area. But bars have suffered more economic pain than most businesses.