Living in the mouth of a loaded cannon

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, safety, Alaska, avalanches

I've lived in California three times. I did my undergraduate studies at Cal State Los Angeles. When I did my graduate studies in South Dakota, one of my professors once said, "Visiting California is like walking in front of a loaded crossbow. Living there is like being tied to a chair in front of it." He was referring to earthquakes. I've been through a few, including one that rolled me out of bed at 6 am precisely (The "Sylmar Quake" that devastated areas of the San Fernando Valley). I've since moved out of earthquake country...relatively speaking, because there is nowhere on Earth that has absolutely no earthquakes.

I've also lived in tornado country, several parts of it, including the Buckle of the Tornado Belt, Stillwater, OK. I've seen a few, and once came close to being caught up in one. Tornadoes can be more destructive than any earthquake, over a much smaller area, but they give more warning of their imminent arrival. If you have a well-made storm cellar, you can ride out even the strongest tornado; though an F5 with 300+ mph winds leaves little but plowed land behind, it won't pull a good cellar out of the ground!

When I moved to Rapid City, SD, I was shown by a colleague how to recognize a flood-prone area. This was just a few years after the big flood of 1972 pretty much razed a downtown area. It wasn't hard to learn to recognize signs such as scraped bark and debris caught in forks, ten to twenty feet above ground. Early settlers only lived on the terraces above the floodplain, but later folks obliviously put houses anywhere they could afford a flat spot. Floods usually give some warning beforehand, and many arrive slowly enough to be escaped from...but not all.

An avalanche, more like an earthquake, arrives suddenly and is over in moments. Experienced observers can learn to predict that a certain place is likely to release an avalance soon, but too few people are experienced enough to see the signs of imminent danger. Each year, about 25 people die in avalanches in the Western U.S., and a similar number in Alaska, though the latter has a much smaller population.

Avalanches, like floods, earthquakes, and tornadoes, occur in certain places. One can learn to recognize an avalanche path. Mainly, it doesn't have many old trees at its bottom. There are even more signs of imminent risk, signs that "If you go there, you'll die." Jill Fredston and her husband Doug Fesler have taught avalanche awareness and avalanche safety courses for many years in Anchorage, Alaska. They codirect the Alaska Mountain Safety Center. They have no web site I can find, but www.avalanche.org/ has a list of courses, including theirs. Together they also consult with businesses and governments, when workers must go into a risky area. And, of course, they are called to many rescue efforts, and have helped dig out many victims...all too few were survivors.

Ms Fredston's new book, "Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches," tells the story of her avalanche education and the growth of the center. She shows us the power of avalanches through the stories of people who've experienced them. Sadly, many of these died. Considering their immense power, and the suddenness with which they occur, the surprise is that anyone survives.

Having trained people in the vicinity, wearing a radio beacon, and having knowledge of how to anticipate (and thus avoid) an avalanche-prone area, plus knowing what to do if caught in one, can give you a chance at living. But only a chance. Few people live more than a few minutes once buried in snow that immediately refreezes to concrete-like consistency. It takes a quarter to half an hour to dig someone out of a four-foot burial, and such shallow burials are the exception, not the rule.

The book's amazing and sobering stories make it a very readable companion volume to the more authoritative Snow Sense that she and her husband co-authored. Where that volume is matter-of-fact, factual, this one is for the heart as much as the head. I felt the fear and despair of many of the victims, the anguish of their families, and finally the frustration of Jill and Doug with the apparent determination of the majority of fellow-humans to live in denial, as a terminal condition. There is no doubt, where avalanches are concerned, denial is fatal.