9781422288320

Chapter One

A Real-Life Story

N atural disasters can be scary. People who live through them are often afraid for a long time after the disaster is over. For those people, sharing their stories can be really helpful. One person shared her natural disaster story online. She wrote it on the website for the Experi- ence Project, a place for people to share all kinds of stories. The storyteller says, “In the summer of 2003, a huge area of British Columbia [a province in Canada] was engulfed in wildfires. It was a terrible, traumatic experience for thousands of peo- ple, residents and rescuers alike. I have never written about this before, not even in my journal, because just after it had happened I just did not want to go through all those emotions again. But now I can write about it.” She continues to tell her story. It was a hot, dry summer that came after two years of summers that were just as hot and just as dry. Drought had turned the forests to tinder. The grass in yards and fields was so dry that if you grabbed a handful, it turned to dust in your hand. Gardens were so dry that the wind blew them away. And meanwhile, it just kept getting hotter! The young woman who went through this was on her way home from a trip to Vancouver. As she neared her town, she saw five planes circling in the air above her. Then she saw rescue vehicles

9