Some People Wonder Why We Can't Just Roadblock the State Highway Into Town
The coronavirus pandemic has already altered daily life beyond recognition. It will shape our lives for years to come, mostly in ways that are impossible to predict, let alone understand. Esquire asked twenty people to share their experiences in the first few months of the outbreak. Each of their first-person accounts is a reassurance that none of us are facing this alone. Check out the full list here.
Early on, we had people driving up from Boise and Meridian to buy toilet paper. That caused a lot of friction. People were upset. I’m sure that not one of the out-of-towners was worried about whether someone else might have needed the toilet paper.
People are like, “Oh, it’ll never happen here.” Well, who’d have thought we’d have an earthquake? And then, a week and a half ago, we had an earthquake. 6.5 magnitude. City Hall suffered damage.
We are a very small city staff: one part-time and six full-time employees. We have a ten-bed hospital. It won’t take much to overwhelm our town.
Population of Cascade: 1,000
The town's tagline: "Idaho's year-round playground"
My worry, as a citizen and as the mayor of Cascade, is if we have anybody pass away as a result of the coronavirus. I will probably know who that is, and I’ll probably know a lot more.
As I’ve looked at the faces of the city employees and the people around town, the thought has crossed my mind. Conceivably, they could not be here as a result of this virus. And what can I do? What can the city do?
Some people wonder why we can’t just roadblock the state highway coming into town. They get wrapped up into wanting the city to have more power than it does. But we can’t do that. We can’t just stop people.
I hope people come out of this thinking, when they buy toilet paper, Who else am I impacting here?
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