The Oakland Berkeley Firestorm: A Thirty Year Chronicle of Emotions, Effects, and Their Import
Abstract as pdf
Corresponding Author:
Susanna Hoffman
Chair, Risk and Disaster Commission IUAES United States of America
susanna@susannahoffman.com
Author(s):
On October 20, 1991 a spark from an old fire reignited and swept down the hills behind Oakland and Berkeley, California. Within four days it destroyed 3,356 homes and 456 apartments. The Oakland Firestorm remains the largest urban fire that the United States has ever witnessed. Twenty-five people died. Six thousand people were left homeless. I am one of the survivors. In the fire I lost my home, clothing, furniture, heirlooms, car, pets, twenty-five years of anthropological research, seven manuscripts, all my other writings, projects in development, photos, lectures and course notes, and entire library. To describe the devastation both physical and psychological of this kind of loss is like trying to define eternity or infinity. I had no salt to put upon my food or for my tears. I had no thread to stitch my daughter's hem or to continue the continuity of my life. I lost the addresses and phone numbers of everyone I ever knew; the vita and record of my past. The fabric of my life, utterly unraveled. The experience and its upshot changed not only my life but also my anthropology. Inadvertently rendered a survivor, I became a researcher, activist, and advocate for the victims of disaster. In the thirty years hence, I have turned into an ardent voice devoted to the issues of risk and disaster. Still my personal recovery from the vast loss lingers. This paper explores the chronicle of long term recovery and the continuing experience almost thirty years since.
Disaster recovery in the long-term