Submitted by Nikyta Palmisani

Living on an island, we are more aware than most of our dependencies on the outside world: for power, food and transportation. But what is our ability to respond to being cut off from one (or all) of these basic needs?

Based on the work of Jem Bendell, we are hosting a gathering of folks who are interested in Deep Adaptation. Join organizers Nikyta Palmisani and Moira McDonough for a Deep Adaptation Meeting 3:30-5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb.15, at the Lopez Library Meeting Room.

Our invitation is to test our community’s resilience and ability to both respond and adapt to a short-term emergency by participating in a voluntary power and water blackout for 48 hours.

Where is your generator? Does it work? Do you have fuel? Is there water in it? How would you cook? Keep warm? Communicate? Do you have enough food and water?

Let’s find out the answers to these questions in a fun, community-based way before we discover them the hard way.

Research has told us that our ability to think creatively and reasonably is challenged or compromised in emergency situations. Things we have practiced stay with us and allow us to stay calm and come up with good solutions when faced with adversity.

Brian Silverstein of the Lopez Island Amateur Radio Society (Ham Radio) will also be giving a brief presentation about the role radio plays in emergency response.

The slated weekend for the voluntary blackout is the weekend of March 13-15, Friday night to Sunday night.

There will be one meeting previous to the voluntary blackout to share best practices and come together to make community nodes of neighborhood resilience. There will also be a follow-up meeting after the voluntary blackout to discuss what worked, what needed improvement, and where innovations and future planning can happen.

We believe that a real-world, on the ground test will help galvanize Lopez as a community to come together to make action plans for both short and long term deep adaptation to a changing world.