ABSTRACT
‘‘Riding the Storm’’ was funded through the US Geological Survey (USGS) Landslide Hazards Program and was filmed and produced by former USGS Geologist Karen Adams with contributions from a number of people who provided an original musical soundtrack, illustrations, animations, and film editing. The film also includes in-depth interviews with victims of the landslides and interviews with affected community members and emergency responders. The Landslide Hazards Program, USGS, is tasked with reducing the hazards from landslides by conducting landslide research and assessments, to which most of its resources are devoted and public information through educational means. The combination of steep slopes, weak rocks, and intense winter rainstorms makes the California San Francisco Bay Area uplands an ideal setting for landslides and an ideal example for film media documentation. The USGS only issues Landslide Common Alerting Protocol alerts for a few regions of the United States for which reliable rainfall thresholds for initiation of landslides and debris flows have been established.
