The Portland She-bacle
Two years after the 2020 West Coast wildfires, Mike recounts the traumatic events he faced mere months after moving to Portland, Oregon. Bearing such emotional weight has been a lonely journey, as I was reminded while trying to share this with loved ones who would find themselves overwhelmed.
Good afternoon. This is Mike George coming at you from Crimson House. I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations—the Lord taught me through the world to keep them low. I’ve coined a simple equation:
Happiness = Reality - Expectations
The lower your expectations of people and places, the more pleasantly surprised you are when they are surpassed. Unfortunately, when those low expectations aren't even met, you lose faith in humanity.
I recently caught up with an ex from five years ago and filled him in on what I’ve dubbed my Portland "she-bacle". For those who don't know the context, I'll give you the "cliff notes" version of the trauma.
Fire & Triage
Around August 2020, I was working at Portland General Electric (PGE) in their Transmission Operation Center. This is a high-security mission control room where we monitor and control the grid for entire cities. During that time, we were facing awful wildfires. I remember the map of the electrical system on our screens — it used GIS-based layers with geographic fidelity, satellite views, and weather radars.
We had unique layers I’d never seen: maps showing counties under voluntary and mandatory evacuation orders, and a fire map showing exactly where flames were burning and where they were projected to go based on wind speed. The map was red. Parts of the electrical system were flashing red, indicating lines were overloaded or at risk of failure. It was triage—like juggling ten plates with two hands and deciding which ones to let fall. As a new employee under mentorship, I was just trying to do what I could to keep the system alive while my trainer was tied up with the emergency.
I Can’t Breathe
I was traumatized, not just by the long shifts, but by stepping outside our "bunker" and seeing red skies and breathing smoke. It’s satisfying to watch something you built get destroyed if you are the one doing it, but it’s different when it’s out of your control.
What movies don’t show is that even 20 miles away, you cannot breathe. It was the summer of 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were told not to go outside because of the smoke, but not to go inside because of COVID-recirculated air. Where do you go to breathe? I remember smoking a menthol cigarette on my balcony, convincing myself it was the safest thing for my mental health.
Detained with a Long-Distance Phone Call
The totality of the environment burning resulted in a mental health crisis for me. Someone in Ohio called the "wellness police" on me from thousands of miles away. I don’t like the police showing up unannounced, especially when I’m smoking a bong. My reaction led the police to determine I was a "harm to myself or others"—the magic words used to detain someone.
I ended up detained in a mental health facility for five days. Because I missed those five days of work during a major disaster, PGE fired me from my first $100,000-a-year job—my dream job.
Dumped by the Curb
After I lost my job, my then-boyfriend, Jared, decided it was an opportune time to break up with me. As the sky turned red and my neighborhood was under threat of fire, he didn't even show up to help me evacuate. I was left at the curb with my bags in hand.
To make matters worse, my roommates—who were friends of Jared—evicted me from my home during the pandemic despite the moratorium, simply because I was on a sublease. A week later, Jared physically and sexually assaulted me. All of this collectively—the job loss, the homelessness, the fires, and the abuse—is what I call the Great Portland She-bacle.
What is a "She-bacle"
To explain a "she-bacle," I use the math concept of an integration function, which is an accumulation of debacles over time.
For those not savvy in calculus, imagine a drag queen named “Debacle” at the top of a mountain formed of her own ego and tip monies.
With a nudge, she begins tumbling down the hill. As the hill pans away from the mountain, the further and further along she tumbles, and the more speed and momentum she gathers. Nobody knows where the bottom is, and she might just break through it irregardless!
That is what my life felt like for 3-4 months in late 2020. I was homeless, jobless, and didn't even qualify for unemployment because I hadn't worked at PGE for longer than 6 months.
Falling into the Gap
During this time, I formed an organization on the fly called Crimson Rouge Studios to survive. I want to evolve it into a housing organization called Crimson House. I don't want to call it a homeless shelter or a halfway house; it should be a socially and economically diverse living community. It would be subsidized by those who can afford "sticker price" airbnbs, but priority would be given to people like me—adults who find themselves on the streets with nowhere to turn. Organizations like the Cascade AIDS Project are great, but if you don’t have HIV/AIDS, there are gaps in the resources available for the LGBTQ+ community.
There is a quote from the film Mulan:
"The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all."
But people forget that for every rare flower that blooms, hundreds of others die in that same adversity. We only hear the stories of survivors—the tip of the iceberg.
I’m telling this story now to have a record of truth. It’s hard to recount, and it sometimes overwhelms people, including my friends. But it feels good to get it off my chest. Until next time, take care of yourselves and take care of someone else, because they probably need it.
