By Bill Chisholm
During my seventeen years doing disaster damage assessment for FEMA, I didn’t just look for the effect, the damage, but the cause of the problem. It often came down to a matter of footing or foundation. If it was a flood, it was often a watershed issue. In many cases in earthquakes it was either the foundation itself or the ground the foundation had been built on.
If I was working a disaster, I was often called on to do re-inspections of particularly gnarly appeals. While working the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, with its epicenter in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, I was assigned a re-inspection of a house in San Francisco. I was informed that when I got there, I was to be met by the owner, her lawyer, her architect and her contractor. Those are always fun, a committee of experts to question your judgment. My job was to find out what the issue or issues were and to make an informed decision.
The house in question was an English Tudor style home, which meant it sat up on posts. I got to the house a bit early, walked around the neighborhood, looked at the house from various angles and then took the opportunity to crawl under the house. A central support post had been knocked out of place by the earthquake, beyond that the house sat pretty square.
I rang the doorbell, which was answered rather brusquely by the owner and was then introduced to the trio of experts. The owner put a marble on the floor and it rolled across the floor. She then took me through the house, (two stories) showing me how all the doors wouldn’t shut properly. The original inspector gave money for trimming and refitting the doors and some other minor damage. Because of the effects the trio of experts was assuming major structural damage was the cause. I listened to them and then explained that if the central post were put back in place, the floor and the doors would realign themselves and all would be well. The lawyer and the architect looked at the contractor, who had not been under the house. He looked rather sheepish and then went under the house. When he came back, he acknowledged the truth of my assessment and we all shook hands.
As a yoga instructor, an activist and a handyman, I continue to look for to the foundation for the remedy or at least the starting point to addressing a problem. The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States is the foundation not only of the Constitution, but the Oath of Office every elected official and public employee takes. It really is the foundation of the citizenship of any one claim to be a citizen of the United States.
We seem to be in constant chaos. There is little to no real communication, only a lot of political posturing based mostly on partisan agendas that have nothing to do with the principles and purposes enunciated in the Preamble. That which should be the focus of public discussion, the yardstick by which we measure success or failures is being ignored, it crumbles under neglect. There are many who seem to believe that the flag and the 2nd Amendment are sacrosanct. I daresay many of those folks would be hard pressed to recite the Preamble and to engage in a coherent conversation about how we might achieve those principles and purposes.
The house is collapsing because we have failed to maintain the foundation or reset the central support post. That which appears to be structural damage could be corrected if we would reset the central support post, commit ourselves to a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote general welfare and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
There is not just one way to accomplish the goals or even move towards them, but without a framework, a yardstick to guide the discussion, we will go as we have been down hill on the back of narrow partisan political ideology and static religious dogma.
William K. (Bill) Chisholm 