Reporting by Steven Gu from his home in Santa Rosa, California.
As you approach Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County, California, the city welcomes you with a sign reading “From the ash, we will rise.” This is a dire reminder of the deadly Tubbs fire that ravaged the city in 2017, killing dozens of people and destroying over 5600 houses and businesses. It is a scar that will remain on the hearts of Sonoma County residents for years to come. Despite this painful past, Sonoma County is still a beautiful place, with grapevines covering the rising hills, cliffs overlooking the ocean, and forests of giant redwoods. The streets of Santa Rosa are lined with a mix of Victorian, colonial, ranch-style, and modern houses, quaint [or whatever] shops, and people from all walks of life. There are hippies with their cups of Yerba Mate, ranchers from up north, winery owners from the valley, surfers, beer bottlers, city workers, and scores of the homeless. An hour north of San Francisco, Sonoma County struggles to provide affordable housing and access to a good education. But it was quick to respond to the threat of Coronavirus: the very first county in the U.S. to declare a stay-at-home order.
By Steven Gu On the maps above and below, the hometowns of ten 2020 UR Edenwalkers appear on a base map of coronavirus cases maintained by the Centers for Disease Control, showing areas of relative social vulnerability and risk. Underlying each home icon is a snapshot of county-level data at the time of publication. A Read more about Location of UR Eden Walkers in Relation to COVID Cases and Social Vulnerability[…]
By Steven Gu Editors note: At this writing, Marin County, California has reported 223 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 12 confirmed deaths. Before John Wildgust, a supervising nurse in Marin County, enters the hospital every evening, he’s required to have his temperature taken at the front door. If it’s normal, he gets a clearance sticker Read more about The Front Line Nurse/Dad[…]
By Steven Gu [Editor’s note: What follows is a story written in early March as the author drove home to California after the University of Richmond closed its campus in response to the outbreak of coronavirus.] ___________________________________________ “STATE LAW Move Over Unless Passing.” This law has been on my mind lately. Driving from Virginia to California, Read more about Slow Driving[…]
By Steven Gu I used to play tennis with the manager of Vitality Bowls, a health food restaurant in Santa Rosa. Fu Long was a senior when I was a freshman in high school. Much better at tennis than I was ever going to be, Fu graduated from high school in 2015, studied business at Read more about Vitality Bowls[…]
Name of Community: Sonoma County, CA Established (date): 1850 Land area: 1,768 sq mi Population: 328,239,523 Population over 65: 16% Population per sq. mile: 87.4 Racial Makeup: 76.4% white, 13.4% black, 18.3% Latino 5.9% Asian Persons per household: 2.63 Per Capita Income: $32,621 Bachelor Degree or above: 31.5% Life expectancy: NA Hospital Beds: 689 Number Read more about Sonoma County by the Numbers[…]
By Steven Gu Today, April 9th, much of this country is under the “shelter-in-place order.” But what is a shelter? One might simply say, a place to stay. Others might say it is your home. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “shelter” means “having a place to live or stay, considered as a Read more about Shelter in Place: Journal | April 2020[…]