California Fires and Storytelling by Debra H. Goldstein
I wasn’t going to write a January Writers Who Kill blog because, somehow, I believed the short stories extended through my day – Wrong! Realizing my mistake, I thought about addressing the fact that Birmingham, Alabama had a fifteen-minute snowstorm on Monday, January 6, and a real one on Friday, January 10th. It had amused me when I noticed the blizzard like snow falling on Monday, but my weather app said it would be over in six minutes – and it was.
Then, the fires came in California. Horrific. Pictures can’t begin to convey the misery, fear, devastation, and tragedy. There were numerous deaths (even one was too many), but I can’t begin to comprehend the mental impact. Homes and memories lost. Hopefully, many of us in the writing and reading community have already reached out to help.
Having been evacuated from a spa in Baja California, Mexico during the San Diego fires, I have some idea of the fear of seeing the smoke coming one’s way, of embers stinging one’s skin, of the sky darkening, of grabbing what one needs versus everything one could take, and of surviving. I never wrote about it. At the time, it was too raw. And yet, looking back at the situation I was in, I realize there were high adrenaline moments as well as comedic things that occurred that would make for good storytelling.
I fear, eventually, the same will be true from this disaster. There will be stories from the perspective of survivors, from the viewpoint of destroyed buildings, of being on a road clogged with abandoned cars as flames come from behind, inside the mind of first responders as well as looters, and of occurrences while being sheltered.
Will they be told for profit? Or, simply by the people who lived them to save their sanity? Do you have a story to tell?
I am such a pyrophobiac (which spellcheck is telling me isn't a real word) I think I would lose my mind living where fires are a way of life. I have been in Colorado and New Mexico visiting while fires were going on, waking to smoke hanging on the air, but never so near an active wildfire to be at risk. Still, it triggered my anxiety big time.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in my teens, arsonists set our barn on fire. Thankfully, no livestock was lost, but I vividly remember standing at our kitchen window, watching in horror as the flames devoured the structure.
OMG, Annette, how terrifying. Glad that the livestock escaped.
DeleteArsonists -- natural disasters make for enough fear, but the horror of arsonists!
DeleteThe LA fires will provide stories of heroism and those of loss; the best of humanity showing through; and the worst scum taking advantage of others losses.
ReplyDeleteLiving half the year in woods, I have a back-of-the -mind concern that we can lose that all by wildfire. I had mostly assumed the kind of fires that raged through cities were stories from the past. That is obviously not so.
The woods are lovely dark and deep, but they burn, too. And I agree with you about the best of humanity and the worst scum.
DeleteWe lived in California for seven years, four in the SF area (earthquakes, rattlesnakes) and three in LA (fires across Santa Monica canyon, rattlesnakes). I loved California life but was relieved to return to the east coast (hurricanes).
ReplyDeleteIt seems that every place has natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.... I love California, too, and am devastated by the destruction there.
DeleteAs a hurricane survivor and first responder in South Dade after Andrew, yes, I have stories, but they still break my heart. Suffice it to say that a disaster leaves nothing and no one the same.
ReplyDeleteKait, you are so right!
DeleteWow!!! It was really an Informational Article to read on, keep it up! thanks
ReplyDeleteI am impressed! Extremely helpful info particularly the remaining section :)
ReplyDeleteYou put helpful information. Keep blogging man. Thankyou for sharing
ReplyDelete