14.1: Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives

Figure 14.4 #OtisStrong remains the rallying cry for fire survivor efforts. The community took charge of their own recovery. How might this slogan help survivors heal?

#OtisStrong was the hashtag and the name that survivors picked for themselves. Within mere days of the fire, you could buy bumper stickers and T-shirts with this logo. Later, hats sported this logo, as shown in Figure 14.4. The hashtag came to symbolize more than just a belief or a feeling. It was a commitment to action. It is the kind of action you hear about in a lot of places after a natural disaster. Families helped each other to sift through debris and move blackened trees. Community members stepped forward to lead those around them who seemed unable to take the next step.

Their response drew state and national attention for its community-centered approach to disaster recovery. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), disaster recovery is the phase of the emergency management cycle that begins with the stabilization of the incident and ends when the community has recovered from the disaster’s impacts (N.d.: 313). More importantly, the response unified a community and built a stronger Otis.

A Case Study Approach to Interrelated Social Problems

This chapter takes a unique approach to social problems in three ways. First, it was written by Dr. Bethany Grace Howe. She is a former resident of Lincoln City, Oregon. At the time of writing this chapter, she was the director of Echo Mountain Fire Relief (EMFR), an organization specifically created to support Echo Mountain Fire survivors. She is a transgender woman and LGBTQIA+ activist. She is also a journalist by training, so this chapter has a lot of stories. The “I” in this chapter refers to Dr. Howe.

And that leads us to our second point. This chapter is an extended case study. For sociologists, that means that we are diving deep into the lived experience of a community in order to more deeply understand the causes and consequences of a social problem, or in this case, a set of social problems. Case studies use qualitative data or stories. These particular stories reflect the experiences of actual Echo Mountain Fire survivors. To protect their privacy, their names have been changed. To be clear, our goal was to support community recovery, similar to the humanitarian efforts described in Chapter 4. At the same time, we learned a lot in doing this work, and we want to share our wisdom.

Third, our goal for this chapter isn’t to introduce many new sociological concepts, although we’ll add a few about the sociology of disaster recovery. Instead, we describe the overlapping social problems that our tiny town experienced before the fire, the impact of the wildfire, and the complex processes of recovery. We are asking how a community confronts multiple social problems at once and, ideally, how the community, in the end, gets stronger. Please listen to these stories with an open mind and an open heart.

Finally, we present the specific stories so that you and your communities can become more disaster resilient to increase their ability to prevent, withstand, and recover from the harmful impacts of natural hazards on people, places, and the natural environment (Tasmania Fire Service 2023). As we pointed out in Chapter 8, climate change is increasing the amount and severity of natural disasters here and around the globe (Arcaya, Racker, and Waters 2020). Therefore, we present this case study so that you can also prepare your own families and communities. As you read, listen, and learn about this specific community, you might consider how these lessons could make your own community stronger.

Focusing Questions

In this chapter, we will explore how many of the social problems you’ve come to understand in this textbook impacted the residents of Otis, Oregon. We ask you to apply examples from the Echo Mountain Fire recovery to your exploration of these questions:

1. Figure 14.2. “Fire Blackened Properties, Still Smoking” © Matt Brandt Photography for Cascade Relief Team is all rights reserved and included with permission.

   Figure 14.4. “#OtisStrong Baseball Cap” © Amy Brown is all rights reserved and included with permission.