Marooned

I had a peculiar dream a few days ago that went something like this:

I've reached adulthood and I'm successful. I have a really nice big house. It's comfortable. Life is good. Then, on the tv, there are reports of an as-yet-undetermined natural disaster about to strike my very neighborhood. I call loved ones, tell them I need shelter for a while. I pack up the important things in the car (you know, health records, old pictures of family, my laptop - stuff I'd rather not lose), and hit the road.

Then the dream really started getting weird.

Instead of traffic funneling at least somewhat smoothly onto the highways, its total chaos just beyond my street. No one is moving, horns are honking, and I'm sitting in deadlocked local traffic for hours. There is no way out. Inevitably, the as-yet-undetermined disaster strikes, and everything in its path is obliterated.

Then I woke up. It was just a dream, I told myself.

The next day, I realized that this was no dream - for some, this could be an unfortunate reality someday. I got stuck in traffic in my dream because there were no highways to take people away. No airports. No trains.

Citizens of the islands of the Northwest, be warned. It could happen to you.

What happens when a modestly populated island has to evacuate in the face of natural disaster? Some of these islands have thousands of people. Many islands have no highways, and only one road through to the mainland.

Some, like Block Is. (Rhode Is.), the bulk of the San Juans (Wash.), or Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket (Mass.), don't even have that.

Sure, maybe they have small airfields, but how many people have airplanes? Commercial air service at small airports is a dying industry, so that's not exactly a safe bet.

So, get on the ferry. The slow, lumbering ferry.

How do thousands of people get off a ferry-access only island in a short period of time? It seems like its asking for trouble.

Now, people living on islands without a reliable link to the mainland is hardly new, and certainly not a northwest-specific trait. But Northwest Islanders take pride in their self-isolation and cutoff from assistance from impending disaster. The Washington St. Ferry System is huge, but its still ferries. They're slow, weather-dependant, and can't hold thousands safely at once.

I even heard that Vashon doesn't even have a real hospital, only an emergency clinic.

And it's not like the Northeast, where the only real imminent natural threat to population centers is the occasional low-level hurricane making its way up the Atlantic coast. (Oh, and did I mention what happens when the oceans rise due to global warming? Wait. That's not natural. We did that. Never mind.)

The Northwest won the geological lottery, situated strategically on the national capital of tectonic activity. We have earthquakes, volcanos, mountains, avalanches, and unusally depressing weather.

Why do people do this to themselves? What is so alluring about living on a low-access island? I would equate it with something like living in Iowa without the cornfields.

But I guess I'll never really understand this one.