Page 42 - Sonoma County Gazette 12-2019

Oh, 2019. I am not sad to see you go, and I am looking forward to turning the page to 2020.
As we go into the holiday season, I hope you’ll do a couple of things.
#1: thank your local firefighter.
#2: please take of yourself, your family, and your friends. Disasters take their toll on all of us.
Road work began on several severely impacted roads in November. Following the Kincade Fire, and despite the associated heavy workload, our Department of Transportation and Public Works engineers spent weekends designing fixes for some of our west county roads. During the 2019 floods, King Ridge Road suffered 5 serious slip outs, Coleman Valley Road continued its deterioration losing over a lane of road on a steep hillside section, and Moscow Road was wiped out close to the town of Duncan’s Mills.
It’s been a tough year for our community. We’ve faced down flood and fire. We have allowed a for-profit corporation to make public safety decisions, resulting in five power shutoff events that generated their own public safety concerns, and caused significant economic hardship to many small businesses and local workers.
Work began on these sites mid-November, with Coleman Valley requiring a 24/7 closure for 3-4 weeks. We are hopeful that the repair to Coleman Valley will result in a permanent fix. It is challenging because
the underlying soil is not stable, so long piles are being drilled into the underlayment to stabilize the road for winter.
In late October, in the midst of our eerie, warm, bone-dry fall, many of us in West County fled from the Kincade Fire not knowing whether our homes would be standing when we returned. And when we returned, many of us came home to cold, dark houses, and wallets that were feeling the sting of shuttered businesses and lack of work.
King Ridge has basically 3 sites, as one hairpin curve in the middle has 3 major slip outs, and the other two failures are close to Tin Barn and close to town. Work will be performed at the top and bottom first, with the middle section coming last. It is hoped that the roadway will be closed from 8-5pm during the work, and open early and late in the day. The roadwork will cease over Thanksgiving weekend, and the road will be open during that time. Fixing King Ridge will take 4-6 weeks, and hopefully the weather will cooperate.
But in 2019 we have also witnessed heroism, and the unshakeable kindness and resilience of our community. We watched neighbors helping neighbors clean out their homes after the February flood. We watched local non-profits offer gift cards to residents and grants for small businesses.
And we watched our firefighters step in front of a fire to save homes and lives — and to stop the fire from coming into West County. I will never forget the call I received on Sunday, October 27th at 4AM. I’d finally fallen asleep about 45 minutes earlier, and was awakened by our Director of Emergency Management, Chris Godley, calling my cell.
Moscow has been winterized by repairing a culvert that was damaged, and will remain closed for several years. This road has the disadvantage of being adjacent to salmon bearing waterways, and will require extensive engineering, permitting, and FEMA funds – which have fortunately been approved – but are not expected to arrive in the near term.
He delivered the news: CAL FIRE’s models were predicting that the Kincade Fire would leap 101 and burn all the way to the coast, taking out the entire lower Russian River community. The only thing that could stop its westward spread was the Pacific Ocean. And I knew that once the Kincade got into the North Coast Mountains and became a fast-moving crown fire, it would consume tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of acres of forest. Sonoma County likely wouldn’t stop smoldering until rains came.
Yet you know as well as I do that we are still here. Our redwoods are unburnt and green and beautiful; the edges of the River are still lush
with vegetation. I will be forever grateful to the 5,000+ heroic firefighters — including our own hometown firefighters, CAL FIRE crews, and battalions from as far away as Montana — who risked life and limb to stop the fire from burning into Windsor, who stopped the fire from crossing 101 and burning through our West County towns.
Pray for modest rain to soak our beleaguered soils and trees, but not torrential rain which could disrupt these needed repairs!
Looking forward to a new, and hopefully better year. Happy Holidays to you and yours...
December 19 ~ Lower Russian River Municipal
Advisory Council Meeting. Agenda and location will be published on the website and posted at the meeting site at least 72 hours before the meeting date.
INFO: http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Lower-Russian-River-
Municipal-Advisory-Council/ and Elise VanDyne at Elise. VanDyne@sonoma-county.org. 707.565.2241
The following organizations offer FREE bilingual mental health services:
• HOPE Sonoma: Call (707) 291-3788
• Wildfire Mental Health Collaborative: Call NAMI at (866) 960-6264 or visit: mysonomastrong.com
• Rebuilding Our Community (ROC) Sonoma County: Call (707) 535-3349 or visit: rocsonomacounty.org • Catholic Charities Disaster Case Management: Call (866) 542-5480
• Santa Rosa City Schools’ Integrated Wellness Center: Call (707) 890-3827 or visit: srcschools.org/domain/2112
• Sonoma Community Resilience Collaborative: Call (707) 303-3600 or visit srhealth.org/about-us/resilience-collaborative
• Wellness and Advocacy Center Peer-to-Peer Mental Health Support: Call (707) 565-7800 or visit wellnessandadvocacy.org • Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Disaster Distress Helpline:
English Speakers call 1 (800) 985-5990 or text TalkWithUs to 66746.
Spanish speakers call 1(800) 985-5990 and press “2”or text Hablanos to 66746. The deaf or hard of hearing can text TalkWithUs to 66746.
42 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 12/19