Why 80 Alarms

I've been putting off writing for too long. When the Lahaina wildfires killed 101 residents and officials defended the choice to not sound 80 alarms, the project had a name and a shape.

Once home to 14 acres of wetland, the Lahaina area has been invaded by Westerners, flammable non-native plants, and the impacts of climate change resulting in a 12-month fire season. Like many of us, our planet is burnt out and fragile.

Instead of truly healing we have created technology to warn of impending danger – sirens, apps, and monitors. But when people in power both decide who hears the warnings and who has access to safety, what does that mean for the rest of us?

I've been afraid to write. For years I've been trying to find sustaining employment. The data tells me, it's not going to happen. So I'm taking the very small risk of writing 80 posts. At some point I may lose my internet, computer, and then housing – but I know I can do so much with a phone and even a single bar of free internet.

Over the years, I have trained myself to recognize harm in the making. I worked hard to become a critical management scholar, to recognize the patterns of organizations staging to maintain racial capitalism and subvert our collective efforts towards social justice and liberation.

That work started as a girl and kept going. It was rough. It is rough. Those first almost 50 years prepared me for the recent experience of housing displacement and (so far) surviving a pandemic mostly without access to healthcare and in isolation.

You don't have to read my thoughts but I have a need to write them. Some of this writing (and I hope art-making) will be raw and unedited. Some will not be new. My hope is it takes as many forms as I need.

As always, nothing will be paywalled.

➙ 14 stories about the Lahaina wildfire that impacted us (Spectrum News, 4/14/2024)
➙ Locals have been sounding the alarm for years about Lahaina wildfire risk (Grist, 9/17/2023)
➙ The Tragedy in Lahaina: How invasive grasses and shrubs are fueling the wildfire crisis in Hawai’i (NAISMA, 10/10/2023)