Hall and an explosion had taken place in a residential area. After
that, news filtered in every 15 minutes or so. We learned that other
incidents had occurred, in Boston and Washington. Downtown, over
a thousand people were in need of evacuation. In South L.A., some
65 persons needed to be moved, including 35 disabled children, a
police o∞cer said.
One of the information o∞cers raised her hand. “Can we say ‘chil-
dren with disabilities’ instead?”
“This is the verbiage that was given to me,” the o∞cer said sternly.
The crisis would turn out to be a multipronged siege that, in L.A.,
focused on the public transportation system—a cyberattack followed
by a complex coordinated terrorist assault. Early in the day, one man,
eyes glued to a screen, was monitoring social media. The simulators
had actually mocked up a fake version of Twitter. “We’re getting peo-
ple saying they’re on a bus with a terrorist,” he announced worriedly
to no one in particular. He wanted to respond to the tweet and ask for
details. At that point, none of us knew the scope of what was coming.
How many terrorists? How many bombs? Were citizens armed and
in the streets? “There’s no way to private message—we’ll just have to
go public with it,” the guy muttered to himself.
A good reminder that, from here on out, the rough draft of history
will be written on social media.
Emergency preparedness is a trend in Southern California,
though it’s often focused on the tangible, the touchable. Friends
who live in Ojai, a small farming community/weekend resort outside
L.A., report passionate debates about the ethics of buying shotguns,
for fear of looters. Oprah recently put a monogrammable Prepster
Emergency Backpack on her list of favorite things. Preppi, the bag’s
maker, sent me its 3-Day Emergency Kit for review, “designed to
fit perfectly on the bookshelf in your home or o∞ce.” All I could
think was, in the event of an attack—some nukes from North
Korea—wouldn’t it wind up buried under a mound of paperbacks?
Sahakian told me it’s easy to fear things like missile strikes or tsu-
namis for their concreteness, but what about the threat we pose to
one another, when the e≠ects of a disaster arrive downstream, by
not knowing our neighbors’ names? Community and social connect-
edness don’t come with two-day delivery. “Some people think you
buy that five-gallon bucket from Amazon that becomes a toilet seat
and you’re prepared,” Sahakian said. “You’re not.” His best advice,
for almost any kind of disaster: Get to know the people around you.
Learn to care for them, if only out of self-interest. When disaster
strikes, the 911 switchboard will be inundated with calls, Sahakian
said. Perhaps a childcare center somewhere is on fire with a dozen
kids trapped inside—does anyone really think the city has the
resources to prioritize your problems in that case? “When there’s
a disaster, police and fire aren’t first responders, they’re second
responders,” he said forcefully. “Make no mistake about that. First
responders are a family member or a neighbor of yours.”
The United Nations warns that a “climate apartheid,” thanks to
the privatization of basic services and unparalleled extreme weather,
may soon divide the world between those who have the resources
to adapt to higher temperatures and those who don’t. Solidarity is
by no measure guaranteed, or even expected. In November, the Los
Angeles Fire Department led an exercise to simulate an evacuation
in our neighborhood, one of the canyons above Hollywood. O∞cers
turned out in fire trucks. An emergency communications squad set
up a large antenna. A helicopter flew overhead, though frankly it
could’ve been paparazzi. The moment felt adequately warlike, and
yet only two of my neighbors emerged to inspect the commotion,
a pair of men who stood around for a couple of minutes with their
arms crossed, talking awkwardly about cleaning out their garages.
None of us knew the others’ names. I hiked down the evacuation
route, imagining what form of human connection, what semblance
of community, I might rely upon in the event of doom. Descending
the path, under a bridge, I found a homeless encampment. On one
tent, someone had painted, “DIE I HATE YOU.”
Pestilence
THE GREATER LOS ANGELES COUNTY Vector Control District serves
just over a million homes, businesses, and weed-festered lots under
its assignment to defend the citizenry from certain contagions. It
deploys pickup trucks to explore underground storm drains; jeeps
fitted with plow blades to attack concrete channels where storm
drains dump trash; a squadron of “sentinel chickens,” flocks of fowl
scattered around the county, who wait to be infected and warn us
of invasion. Vector Control is like a Special Ops team that few know
about, fighting daily to save Los Angeles from a deadly outbreak that
seems eminent. “We’re kind of the tip of the spear,” said Mark Daniel,
Vector Control’s director of operations.
The climate crisis isn’t just happening; it’s accelerating and getting
worse. And yet the response from governments and corporations is only
lately sounding urgent. The threat was always too distant, too vague—
whereas the recent spread of coronavirus and the disease it’s caused,
COVID-19, prompts panic. Actually, global warming has plenty to say
when it comes to viruses. One consequence is a potential to revitalize
diseaseslike bubonic plague. In China a recent outbreak of pneumonic
plague was linked to climate change, thanks to a dramatic expansion of
rodent populations (caused by drought, incidentally). There’s also con-
cern about how diseases get transmitted. As a proud “city of sanctuary,”
Los Angeles welcomes humans of all sorts—and the same can now be
said for mosquitoes, specifically a genus called Aedes.
According to Timothy C. Winegard, author of The Mosquito: A
Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, these insects have killed
more people than any other single cause of death in human history.
Being a “vector,” as it’s known in the industry, Aedes can carry and
transmit viral diseases like yellow fever and chikungunya. It’s respon-
sible for outbreaks of dengue in Bangladesh and Zika in Brazil. During
a recent visit to Vector Control’s headquarters, I noticed mosquito
sculptures displayed in cabinets like so many hunting trophies.
“People are saying, ‘Wait a second, do I live in Florida now?’” Daniel
said. What makes contemporary Los Angeles County scary for Vector
Control is its anthropogeography, the human geography: so many fluc-
tuating populations, with so many people on the go. Also because, sea-
son after season, its call logs keep growing. (continued on page 97 )
APRIL 2020 GQ.COM 83
AREN’T
THEY’RE SECOND RESPONDERS....
FAMILY MEMBER OR A N
EIGHBOR.”
POLICE AND FIRE
DISASTER
,
