Vol. 189: One disaster after another

Is no place safe? Read on.

First, this year’s bad weather news:

At least 1,800 people were dead or missing last week after flash floods hit Tibet and Nepal, where a giant torrent of mud, water, and ice smashed through buildings, swept away buses, snapped bridges into pieces, and engulfed people who tried to run but were overtaken by its destructive force.

Flash floods also drowned people and houses in Indiana, Hawaii, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut.

So far in 2026, some 51,434 wildfires have burned more than 7.9 million acres in California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.

Earthquakes have caused 6,500 deaths in Venezuela, and also devastated California, Honduras, Indonesia, Colombia, Nepal, Peru, Japan, and Spain— and again, that’s just this year.

This summer’s heat wave in Europe has caused more than 20,000 deaths.

The Colorado River is drying up after decades of overuse, threatening seven western states with impending drought.

In Argentina, thousands are flocking to the Patagonia Desert, hoping a petroleum boom there can reverse the nation’s decades of chronic economic instability.

Chicago’s April snows

There’s no easy escape from these nightmares. Trains and plane fares are going through the roof. The price of diesel fuel hit $5.62 a gallon last week, 53% higher than a year earlier.

Even in places where nobody worries about meteorological conditions— like say, Gaza or Ukraine— people find other things to worry about, like being bombed out of their houses and apartments. Or data centers are gobbling up thousands of acres, each one consuming as much electricity as tens of thousands— or even hundreds of thousands— of homes.

Is no place anywhere in the world safe from these acts of God and man and maybe even a few women? I thought you’d never ask.

Let me put it this way: Barbara and I were living in Indiana in 1965 when the Palm Sunday tornado struck, causing everyone in our town to hunker in the northwest corner of their basements (as they’d been instructed) while the storm raged overhead. Fortunately, nobody in our town suffered more than heavy rain. But just 16 miles to the north, the storm toppled a church building, killing several worshippers inside.

Then we moved to Chicago, where, for four years, we encountered not just snow in April, but a major blizzard each April.

When we moved to Philadelphia in 1972, I routinely bicycled my younger daughter to school every day. The first time it snowed, we arrived at school at the customary hour, only to discover that all Philadelphia schools had been closed due to the snow. If Chicago closed the schools every time it snowed, the school year would last maybe four months.

Philadelphians who drive

We Philadelphians, marinated in the modest Quaker tradition, tend to hide our light under a bushel basket. The fact is: None of the above disasters has occurred here or is likely to.

Ever since our president (forgive me, his name escapes me), in his wisdom, launched his war against Iran this past February, most Americans not already victimized by floods, fires, earthquakes, or droughts can talk about little else than the high price of gas at the pump. My key question: Have you heard anyone in Center City Philadelphia complaining about gas prices?

Of course, some of us downtown Philadelphians do own cars. We just don’t drive them very often, because pretty much everything we need is within walking distance. That includes supermarkets, boutiques, pharmacies, medical care, and some of the East Coast’s best restaurants. (It’s America’s most walkable city, according to USA Today for the third straight year.)

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts— home of the world-famous Philadelphia Orchestra and six other arts groups— is two and a half blocks from my home. The fabled Academy of Music, home of opera, ballet, and traveling Broadway productions, is four blocks away. So is Curtis Institute, one of the world’s greatest music schools. My office is seven blocks away. Walk another 15 minutes and you hit a string of world-class museums: the Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Barnes Foundation (which houses more French Impressionists than any Paris museum), the spanking new Calder Gardens, and of course the queen of them all, the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

It’s a cultural smorgasbord that’s second in concentration only to New York City. And the cost of living is a lot lower.

Oh, did I mention that New York City’s 911 emergency phone system broke down for seven hours last week, preventing hundreds of callers from reaching operators?

Summer camp for grownups

My 2023 Honda Accord hybrid has 7,200 miles on it after three years— that’s less than seven miles a day. And a hybrid recharges its batteries every time you step on the brake, which you do a lot of in the city (but not in the suburbs or on the Interstates). If Barbara and I fill up the gas tank once a month, that’s a lot. Incidentally, the Lombard Swim Club, AKA summer camp for grownups, is five blocks from us. When you live in Philadelphia, who needs a summer house at the Jersey shore, the Poconos or on Cape Cod?

Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times named Philadelphia the #1 must-visit destination in 2026, the year the city stepped onto the world stage with America’s 250th birthday, the FIFA World Cup, and the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. (I know, I know— the Journal and the Times are fake news. But still.)

Maybe best of all, our president is so preoccupied with messing up Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Charlotte, Memphis, New Orleans, and of course Washington that he’s barely noticed Philadelphia. Thank God for his short attention span. (Please don’t tell anyone.)

Last year our city recorded its fewest homicides since 1966 and its most jobs since 1980. There’s a certain logic to these trends. If you have a job, plenty of cultural amenities, and no blizzards, floods, or fires to worry about, why kill anyone?

W.C. Fields said it

Surely, you say, there must be something wrong with Philadelphia. And you’re right. The streets and sidewalks are often torn up. My mother-in-law, of blessed memory, often counseled us to “look up and see the beautiful buildings” whenever we walked in town. That’s how I tripped and fell on the sidewalk this past May.

After America’s Civil War, Philadelphia reinvented itself as “the workshop of the world”— a bustling but boring industrial powerhouse, where the only decent restaurants were Bookbinder’s and Shoyer’s, you couldn’t get a drink or watch a ball game on Sunday, and most respectable people fled to the suburbs. Now Center City has reinvented itself once again, as a glitzy center of arts and culture, gourmet restaurants, and gleaming high-rise buildings, not to mention home to more than 100,000 upward strivers.

Philadelphia’s favorite booster— no, not Ben Franklin, but W.C. Fields— once proposed this epitaph for himself: “Here lies W.C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia.” Me too.

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s newest book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950-55. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com