My oldest kid had a strange homework assignment the other day: ask your parent about a natural disaster that they have experienced.
My first thought was that I hadn’t lived through any natural disasters, but upon reflection I realized that I have.
- The Tyee Fire Complex, 1994
I’ve blogged about this one before. We had lived in our little mountain resort town for about six years at that point, and I don’t think we had experienced a major wildfire before this. It was a sunny summer afternoon when the smoke moved into the valley, bringing news of this new fire. Now the sun was a red disc in the sky.
Usually in July and August our small town was swarmed with tourists, but they soon disappeared and firefighters appeared in their place. The grocery store parking lot was full of fire-fighting vehicles, and the town was now full of young men in thick firefighter pants and dirty shirts. Helicopters went back and forth all day scooping water from our lake to dump it on the fire. The local radio station played Smoke on the Water and Black Hole Sun and other fire-themed songs in between regular fire updates.
The smoke settled into the valley and stayed and stayed and stayed, so thick we weren’t allowed to go outside even though the air inside the house was slightly smokey too. Some people began running sprinklers on their roofs. My mom finally grew concerned enough that she packed all three of us off Grandma and Grandpa’s farm where the air was still clear and clean.
While we were away, the line of wildfire came down the hills, threatening to jump the river gorge and engulf the town. I still have the dark, grainy video that my dad took that night. I was upset for years to have missed that moment. - Satsop Earthquake, 1999
I was stretched out on the floor of my dad’s house watching TV that evening when the floor started to shake and roll. It was not very intense, and I only found out later that it had been an earthquake. - Nisqually Earthquake, 2001
Remember how big and bulky TVs were before flatscreens were invented? Remember how in school there was always a giant, heavy TV balanced on a tiny metal arm mount in the corner of every classroom? Well, I was sitting under that TV in my junior year math class when the room–and especially the TV–started shaking.
This was the most intense earthquake I have ever experienced. We all ducked under our tables, and my friend M who had just moved to Washington from the East Coast a few years before started sobbing and weeping with fear. My main concern was keeping clear of the TV!
The TV did not fall that day, and in fact less than seven months later I would watch the events of 9/11 (after both towers had collapsed) play out on the same television. - Virginia Earthquake, 2011
This is my favorite of my earthquake-specific memories. I was sitting at my desk on the third floor of a small office building near Union Square in Manhattan when the floor started shaking and rolling a little bit. I recognized the rolling sensation, turned to my coworker who was a lifelong New York resident, and asked if they ever had earthquakes in New York.
“No,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
I actually don’t remember how we found out it was a real earthquake. My husband was in a high-rise office building at the time and I believe they evacuated. I don’t think we evacuated but man that was a shitty building and we probably should have.
After recounting all these incidents to my oldest child, he sighed and said, “I wish I could experience a disaster someday.”
Um, excuse me, aren’t you the same kid who came home one Friday in first grade and didn’t return to school for over a year because the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world to close? Aren’t you the same kid who still has a piece of melted metal from the car that was set on fire across the street during the George Floyd riots of that same year?
Just the other day, my youngest related that one of his earliest memories is of me telling him that someday he would be one of the oldest people alive who would remember the Covid-19 pandemic. Ironically, he remembers me saying that, but really doesn’t remember anything about the pandemic itself!
I fail as a fortune teller.
I told my oldest that if he wanted to experience a good earthquake he should go to college in Washington, where they are also overdue for a good volcano eruption. (I am still mad that I missed the eruption of Saint Helens by about two and a half years.)