Thirteen years ago, I returned to my hometown of Juneau, Alaska. I’d been living in Southern California, an environment that, with each wildfire season, had become increasingly hostile to my lungs. Juneau seemed like the solution, a place where I could raise a family of my own. Nestled in the world’s largest temperate rainforest—where it rains on average between 90 and 120 inches a year—I could drink delicious water from the tap and breathe deeply in the pristine air. If all hell broke loose, we would be surrounded by plenty of natural resources with which to fill our jars and freezers and warm our homes.

Juneau lacks wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes, and due to the island’s breakup, there are no tsunamis. In…