Santa Barbara needs our love, care, and attention. Our city has been buffeted by a tempest of fire and debris, of environmental and economic frailty, and by the ravages of COVID-19. I believe our city can emerge stronger and more resilient, if we take the time to deliberately set our course. Robust civic engagement and public discourse are fundamental components in this process.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought previous tensions straining our community to a breaking point. In earthquake seismology, we describe rupture in terms of ductile versus brittle strain. When pressure builds over a long enough period, the earth has time to accommodate the stress and have a ductile adaptive response. If the forces of pressure are too intense, or applied to an area that has already been strained, the earth will rupture catastrophically, sending reverberations of the brittle response in all directions. In a large enough earthquake, the earth rings like a bell. We are experiencing such a shock.
Prior to COVID, our community was in a state of increasing tensions and stress, but we were still able to absorb and adapt. The cumulative stress building from the natural disasters of the Thomas Fire and the Montecito Debris Flow, from handling the effects of climate change and extreme drought, from a changing local economy, and a growing housing crisis left us brittle. When COVID hit us hard, the added pressures came too focused and too sustained, and like a sudden earthquake, it forced our brittle community to the point of rupture. Santa Barbara is a strong, resilient community. We will rise and rebound past this tectonic shift in our trajectory; however, we do not yet know the full measure of how far we are offset.