Three times in the past four years, CalOES_Dir has tried to retire from his decade-long job as the head of emergency services in California, only to postpone because of some, well, emergency.
Three times in the past four years, Mark Ghilarducci has tried to retire from his decade-long job as the head of emergency services in California, only to postpone because of some, well, emergency.
A: I can only speak to what’s in front of me, but what I’m seeing is dramatic change in our climate that is resulting in extreme-weather-related impacts. We just came through a heat dome of unprecedented duration and intensity. We have hot summers, I get it — I went to UC Davis — and we’ve seen crazy extreme weather conditions. But I don’t think this is an anomaly. This is the new normal.A: California isn’t falling off the face of the earth, and California isn’t collapsing.
But it’s not just natural disasters. Emergencies happen when you least expect them. You could be in the middle of an active shooter situation. Or all of a sudden there’s a bomb threat. Or hazardous materials across the street. How do you handle that? When you walk into a facility, do you know where the exits are? Is there a back door? If the lights go out, do you know where to go?A: Quite frankly, I do that every place we go.
A: Our experience in the pandemic did shape a lot of what we did. We never said, turn things off, for instance. Our message had been, conserve during these hours, turn your thermostat to 78. We were very judicious on the words we picked.