So, it’s been a minute (OK, nearly 5 years) since I last posted on here; that was in mid-summer 2020 when the Covid crisis was in full swing and Black Lives Matter protests were unfolding in cities across the US. My nearest and dearest all survived the intervening years; spouse and I made a couple of trips back to the UK (on one of which I got Covid and was poleaxed for weeks); and there were a couple of presidential elections. I kept thinking oh, I should start that blog up again, but I’ve been getting into writing fiction (hey, the first book in my YA fantasy trilogy is complete and needs an agent, HINT) and somehow it was never the right moment.

Then came the disastrous November 2024 election that’s left us struggling to get a perspective on watching an established democracy being destroyed from the inside. All those alien attack movies (Independence Day?!) didn’t prepare us for an attack that’s 100% homegrown and that everyone saw coming. “Wait, you mean he wasn’t joking when he said he’d be a dictator? I thought that was just on day one!” 

Image from AP News

The sheer amount of garbage raining down on us right now is impossible to fathom, which is, of course, the point, and right out of the How to Do a Fascism playbook. Trump dashes off endless Executive Orders, Musk and his minions take a flame thrower to the entire structure of federal government, and the courts struggle to keep up with the resulting workload of cases—and through it all, the administration is running through the far-right Project 2025 checklist at a staggering pace. So how to restart a blog about being an expat Brit in the USA when all of everything is going on?

A couple of weeks ago there was an Event in our neighborhood, a huge fire at a large manufacturing plant about a mile from where we live. You may even have seen the news stories (it was reported globally). Hundreds of firefighters and hazmat specialists fought a massive blaze that started late one evening, hampered by bitterly cold temperatures and strong winds. Everyone within a one-mile radius was told to shelter-in-place for a couple of days, all local schools and businesses closed, and those within a five-block radius were recommended to evacuate. It took four days for everything to finally be extinguished. 

Image from Glenside Local newspaper 

This was a building I’d driven by countless times over the years, never realizing how big the whole complex was, how many people it employed (500+), or how long it had been there—the company was founded in 1900 and moved to that site in about 1920. I was vaguely aware of the firm’s support for local kids’ athletic teams (spent many a weekend afternoon on a field across from the plant watching Older Son playing various sportsball games), but I never thought about the hundreds employed there for over a century, or that at lunchtime its workers were a huge source of revenue for local pizzerias and fast-food places. I knew it made some kind of industrial fasteners—but not that those nuts and bolts and such were actually essential parts in the aerospace industry, supplying both civilian and military fleets. 

In case you hadn’t clocked to it yet—yes, there’s a not-so-subtle parallel here with what is being decimated by Musk et al, namely that the reach and impact of good government, like a major factory, is not noticeable until it’s not there.

The local response to the fire was and remains phenomenal. A total of 68 fire companies were called in (68!!!), from across southeastern Pennsylvania, almost all of them made up of volunteer crews. Nearby restaurants gave free meals to responders and one right next to the factory gave the crews a place to rest up.

Image from CBS News Philadelphia

The local community Facebook Group has been full of Opinions since the fire (it’s amazing how many people turn out to be environmental impact and hazardous waste experts…). At the height of the disaster, people were (understandably) clamoring for instant answers, but the various fire chiefs involved were busy actually, y’know, managing a potentially catastrophic blaze. I get it; we were very much on edge and we live at the outer limit of the shelter-in-place radius. But disasters unfold in chaos and initially the best you can hope for is that no one dies—in this case, all 60 workers in the plant at the time got out safe and unharmed.

(Image from Bucks County Courier Times.)

Still, this was a large manufacturing facility with drums of chemicals stored on site (reportedly the worst were in a building that did not catch fire); not to mention the building materials themselves that went up in (possibly toxic?) smoke and scattered (potentially hazardous?) debris across the neighborhood (remember those strong winds?). 

So, people are understandably skeptical of the information being put out by contractors hired by the firm, clamoring instead for answers from the state-level Department of Environmental Protection, and the federal-level EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives). 

Yes, that EPA, the one currently facing a 60% + reduction in staffing, and that ATF, the one some members of the government are insisting should be abolished.

Great though the local response has been, there’s a limit to what the neighborhood can do on its own. No state or local government agency has the resources to research and disseminate the latest scientific advice on the myriad of chemicals used in contemporary manufacturing. That takes federal level resources. Some local residents are upset that maybe the regulations weren’t stringent enough. Don’t worry, Trump et al are making sure they’ll soon be eliminated altogether.

Those of us who ranted about the dangers of a return of Trump are suddenly looking like prophets now that Trump 2.0 is underway. Swathes of the country have not yet been impacted in any meaningful way, but the unrest and protests are definitely picking up momentum as scores of federal workers are suddenly laid off, and news spreads about the chaotic and likely illegal shuttering of countless programs.

When the fires get really big, even the best of neighbors aren’t enough. For that, we need the federal government. But now we’re left wondering, who will come to our aid next time?