In 2020, Desiree Heveroh became sole caretaker of a tiny California lighthouse island; when power failed for two months, she relied on a 1930s generator

Several small, rocky islands in the northern part of San Francisco Bay carry lighthouses that were built in the nineteenth century to guide ships through narrow, fog-prone channels. The keeper’s house stood beside a wooden tower; supplies arrived by ship and whoever lived there operated the light each day. The automation of the twentieth century put an end to resident keepers at many stations, while those buildings that still existed were either left to decay or given over to preservation societies. Operating the station in modern times is quite a different experience. Power can be brought to the island via an underwater cable, the navigation light is often maintained by the Coast Guard and the non-profit organization handles maintenance costs by hosting guests for the night. If anything in that chain fails, the person living on the island is usually the first to notice and has few alternatives.East Brother Light Station, first lit on March 1The US Lighthouse Society’s page for podcast episode 94 gives the station’s background. The page states that Congress appropriated funds in March 1871 for a light on East Brother Island, which lies about 1000 feet offshore on the east side of California’s San Pablo Strait. The Stick Style structure is a wooden square tower built onto a six-bedroom keeper’s residence and the station’s fourth-order lens was first lit on March 1, 1874. The station was automated and unmanned in the summer of 1969. Restoration work on the lighthouse has been carried out by the non-profit East Brother Light Station, Inc., under Coast Guard license and by 1980 it had become available for overnight stays.Desiree Heveroh became resident keeper after the June 2020 closureThe Light Hearted emergency episode from May 2021 explains that the COVID-19 pandemic forced the bed and breakfast to close at the end of June 2020. The resident caretakers left and board member Desiree Heveroh moved in as resident keeper. A KTVU report describes her as a trained volunteer who served as a keeper alongside professional keeper Captain Jarrod Ward and says Ward was sent elsewhere when the light station lost power, leaving her on the island alone. Reports differ slightly on how long she stayed, with Latitude 38 giving 13 months as of August 2021 and the Lighthouse Society’s episode 309 page giving 14 months; counting from the end of June 2020 to mid-August 2021 gives about 13.5 months, so each figure is a rounding of the same stay.The Coast Guard cable failed on April 1, 2021According to Latitude 38, the cable supplying power to the island broke on April 1, 2021, while the Light Hearted page places the failure in early April. The Light Hearted page also mentions that the cable is 30 years old, 2000 feet long and is installed and owned by the Coast Guard. Latitude 38 further states that the Coast Guard installed the current cable in 1991, after a lightning strike irreversibly damaged the previous cable, which dated from the 1960s.The backup battery and generator could power the light but little else. Heveroh told SFGate that the light’s batteries charged whenever she ran the generator, which she described in her KTVU interview as dating from the 1930s and Tom Butt, the mayor of Richmond and president of the nonprofit, said the batteries alone could run the light for only 72 hours.Fundraising, a temporary splice and her move to the SS Red Oak Latitude 38 reported that she launched a GoFundMe campaign after the cable break, which KTVU reported had raised more than $80,000. Latitude 38 cited $150,000 as required to fix the cable only and at least $800,000 for putting it in place. An electrical contractor was later able to splice the remaining broken cable, which KTVU described as a temporary fix and Heveroh explained to Latitude 38 that there were two months during which the island had been without power. The same news outlet stated that the 1962 pier and gangway require fixing as well. CC Pulse reports that she moved off the island in mid-August and became shipkeeper of the SS Red Oak Victory museum in the Richmond shipyards, a role the Lighthouse Society’s episode 309 page also lists.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.