From The Dryas Press
The information you need, to understand our largest winter storm hazards, their expected impacts, and how you can prepare yourself, your family, and your community to get through them safely.
About this book
Megastorms are intense, prolonged Pacific atmospheric river (AR) weather events that drench broad areas of the West Coast with tens of cubic miles of rain and snow in a matter of weeks. Using facts and the latest assessments and forecasts from leading experts and researchers, this book describes the history and science of megastorms, their known and expected impacts, hazards, and costs, and the estimated (and increasing) odds that one will occur in any year. California is particularly susceptible to megastorms; one here in 1862 remains America's greatest natural disaster.
This writing project is intended to provide an authoritative go-to source for the general reader, with background information on extreme landfalling Pacific AR events and sequences, and their impacts on natural and built environments, including infrastructure, communities, and populations. I’ve adhered to factual information and research of established provenance, responsibly presented, with a bit of clearly denoted opinion and advocacy. I hope to help increase awareness and motivate both preparedness and policy evolution.
In twenty chapters this book will increase your awareness and understanding of what to expect from severe storm sequences, and explain how individuals, families, households, and communities can prepare to safely ride out major winter weather impacts including those more extreme and extensive than living Californians have ever seen. Practical advice for personal preparation allows the reader to proceed with greater confidence, while helping to build more resilient communities.
This book will be of interest to residents, property owners, community leaders, infrastructure planners, owners and operators, public officials including public safety and emergency services agency staff, disaster relief NGOs and volunteer organizations, responders including CERT teams, emergency preparedness advocates, history buffs, weather and climate aficionados, students of public policy, including land use and water management, public interest advocacy groups, and anyone interested in the psychology of risk and cognitive influences on personal and institutional behavior.
About the presentation
The author's approach to the project
[From the Introduction:]
"My role in this, as I see it, is: (1) to gather, distill and consolidate the
sometimes-technical information that is unfamiliar to many people; sometimes I
crunch numbers or connect dots; (2) to try to present this information in a clear
and understandable way, without dumbing it down, or hyping or exaggerating it
(‘megastorm’ is the strong term most often used by professionals in this field); (3)
to explore some of the further implications of information that has been published
elsewhere; (4) to occasionally flag information that seems to be missing, or in need
of further evaluation, from the sources I’ve consulted; and (5) to help the reader find
and consult those same original sources, and/or others, and draw their own conclusions.
I have tried to present only facts as facts, and to avoid errors, but being only human,
I’ll ask you to take nothing on faith if you doubt anything you read here. Consult
reliable sources (I provide several) and take your own fact-finding to a higher level.
There is also a (6): sometimes I comment on things that concern me, or I advocate;
those are my own views.
In short, I hope to be a good and faithful communicator of important information
that may be hard to find or difficult to grasp. It is also necessary for me to address misinformation and any controversy, which I do."
About the author
R. W. Kerrigan, Ph.D. had public safety responsibilities in California for 8 years, followed by 45 years as a researcher and educator in the life sciences. Personal experience of recent severe weather events and their consequences led to a deep dive into what history and science tell us about extreme storms and floods in the West. Public safety including community engagement remains a major focus of his interests. Megastorms, California, and You is his third book.
Cover photo: Half Dome in storm, seen from Upper Yosemite Falls, 1973. Photo by the author.
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