Reply To: Are disasters considered opportunities?

[J. Nielsen]

Thank you for the thought out response. I am 120 miles from Portland and not really affected by what is going on with the unrest there, beyond the exodus of people that are leaving the city for the suburbs and semi-rural surrounding communities.

Wildfires, on the other hand are affecting me big time. As I type this, the AQI is in the 500s and it is not safe to go outdoors for any long periods of time. This will be a temporary measure as the fires will extinguish eventually, is the aftermath there will be a need to rebuild.

Currently I am staying occupied doing short term gigs on UpWork and PeoplePerHour, much of which is overseas work. I’d like to get involved with more local work, within my own time zone. I believe that the tempo is going to go from stagnant due to the quarantines to full throttle soon. My sense is that with whole communities destroyed that the local firms are about to get overwhelmed. I do not want to come off as an ambulance chaser, but it seems that this fire season has presented the opportunity. Six months of sitting on ones behind at home would make anyone jump at the chance.

I guess real question is how to navigate the way forward. How does one even broach that subject with city planners and managers that have just lost their tax base and know that the FEMA dollars are a limited and finite resource.