The Spring issue of The Acorn was published just as we plunged into the unprecedented COVID-19 quarantine in the US. After 3 months, millions are still out of work, millions have been infected, over 110,000 American souls have been lost. Nobody likes it, but as time has worn on many have become inured to the new realities of increased distancing, wearing PPE when out in public, the cratering of local economies, and the high risk of travel.
These realities are radically different in different parts of the country. At the time of this writing, where I live in Prince William County, VA has well over 6,000 infections and 110 deaths from COVID-19. We have twin adult sons, one of whom lives in Mount Pleasant, SC, and reports that people don’t seem to take the spread of COVID-19 quite as seriously as we do here – and the numbers reflect that Charleston County has roughly 1/10 of the infections and deaths as we have here in PWC. Our other son lives in Los Angeles, CA, which has about 60,000 infections and 2,500 deaths – roughly ten times greater than where I live, and 100 times greater than where his twin brother lives.
That difference is astounding to me, but we are early yet with this pandemic. Public health experts agree that this highly contagious novel respiratory virus will continue to spread wherever there are humans with lungs. People who engage in risky behavior (not wearing PPE and participating in gatherings without safe distancing from others) only facilitate increasing infections, regardless of whether they acknowledge it. That the sensible use of PPE has become a divisive issue in some places is a dismal indicator of where we are as a society. There is hope for a vaccine, but the possibility exists that we may not be successful in developing one that works as well as we would hope as quickly as we would hope.
For this installment of Passport To Trees, I wanted to reach out to some of the communities we have featured over the past five years to see how life and work has changed for the folks who deliver the community forestry programs there. Hopefully, this will illustrate how different communities can find solutions to this new reality in ways that work for them, and possibly show different ways to adapt for others needing similar solutions.
In the City of Greenville, Drew Smith told me the City has staggered schedules, so that employees don’t all arrive at the same time and go to get their gear from the same places. Temperatures are checked; the number of personnel who can ride in a vehicle together is reduced to 2. The City reduced to about 25% of their work force during the shutdown, with those who did report to work devising solutions for how to bring the rest of the workforce back. Parks and facilities were shut down, including the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Parking on Main Street was converted to outdoor seating for restaurants for reopening.
Camden had one of the first COVID outbreaks in SC starting early March. Liz Gilland told me that City Hall is still closed to the public, and that field staff during the lockdown were put on alternating schedules with some crews working on alternate weeks. Camden’s neighborhood parks are so pedestrian accessible that it didn’t really serve a public health purpose to try to control access, indeed the parks continued to be used responsibly, with adequate distancing, with one exception: they did use police tape to keep people (with children) from accessing and using playground equipment within parks.
Tim Gillette told me that the City of Tega Cay limited the number of employees per vehicle to 1, which is the strictest of the locations I contacted. When I spoke with him he was about to participate in the first-ever Rock Hill Tree Commission video meeting (he works for Tega Cay and lives and volunteers in Rock Hill).
Caleb King in Columbia says the City has adapted much like other municipalities: they reduced their workforce during the quarantine by having employees work on alternating weeks. Now they are limiting the number of employees per vehicle, providing masks, stepping up cleaning of frequently touched surfaces, screening employees with temperature checks and questionnaires, and testing symptomatic employees. They continue to do as much of their tree work as they can under these conditions.
I remember speaking with David Grant in Charleston early in the shutdown, he told me “Man, this must be what arborist heaven is like!” He was amazed at how much easier it was to get around and access tree work without all the traffic. In speaking with him for this article, he noted that while things have picked back up, they’re not “back to normal” by any stretch. And the bleak financial/economic reality is getting real for municipalities, their workforces, and the folks they serve.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know we are living in turbulent times. The economic desperation is real. The public health risk is real. Unconscious bias and racial inequality are real. Our climate is warming faster than at any time in recorded history. Change is happening faster than we can adapt to it. If we ever needed to work together, the time is now.
It’s not going to be easy.
More than ever, we are a divided people. Instead of civil discussion, searching for common ground, and each side being willing to compromise at the bargaining table to at least get part of what they want, competing interests now use all forms of media to weaponize disinformation in order to divide us. Such tactics distract, polarize and incite destructive behavior. It’s the ancient principle of ‘divide and conquer’, only delivered more efficiently by modern technology than the ancients could’ve ever dreamed.
There are also outside interests who actively seek to divide us through the same tactics. Disinformation proliferates and thrives online, especially during times of crisis. A polarized society soon loses the willingness to be a civil society, and it feels like we are at that point to me. But if we can find ways to work together I believe it may be possible to heal the divisions and become civilized again. I hope and trust that we find a way forward that works for the good of all.
I know most of you already work with your communities to hear and address people’s concerns. I worked for municipal government, I haven’t forgotten what constitutes the main focus of that job – it’s listening. Even when people were very angry with me (as the face of their City, usually about line clearance pruning), if I was able to allow them to have their say (loudly, in my face) and acknowledge that they had a concern, they almost always calmed down after a few minutes and then we could talk. I commend you for continuing to listen to your communities, and for continuing to do the important work of planning, planting and caring for your community’s trees, especially during these trying and unprecedented times.
Recent Comments