Tag: emergency

poetry

Annie’s Story

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A frame from video of the Marshall Fire evacuation taken by David Zalubowski with the Associated Press. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/30/us/colorado-fires

Annie’s Story

when her 8-year-old son kept saying
I don’t want to die today
she calmly explained
that wouldn’t happen
they were safe
the fire was a long way away
they would leave if it ever got close

a few hours later
trapped in gridlock
with the smoke plumes getting darker
her family split between
different cars and departure times and friends
she’s nearly overcome by the unbearableness of
stasis in the midst of terror
jammed in this long line of sitting ducks
straddling gas tanks

so she asks the traffic control lady
if she’s still going the best way,
and the lady shakes her head and says,
there are a lot of people getting hurt up there
(which later proved to be false,
but then she’d no way to know)

afraid to learn exactly how close the flames are now
she wills herself not to check the messages on her phone
instead she calls her National Guard brother
pleading for him to find her an exit
thinking to herself
I don’t want to die today

but even with his emergency ops experience
and all the info he is calm enough to marshal
all her brother can tell her is stay where she is –
north is the only way

now she says, everyone miraculously safe,
things aren’t the same

sometimes it’s like my nervous system is outside my body
she says
like there is no buffer between the world and me

I will never leave my husband’s side in an emergency again
she says
I wanted us to be together if something happened

I will never wait for an evacuation order again
she says
by the time they order you it’s too late
the roads are packed solid

I’m glad I took my rings
but I didn’t really need my wedding photos –
more of those exist

my main regret is I didn’t grab my grandmother’s box
it goes between my mom and uncles
so they have turns with her memories

my mom had loaned it to me
and I would have let them down
if I’d let it burn

one of the hardest moments was
picking up my daughter from her friend’s.
she asked me if our home was gone
and all I could say was
I don’t know

It wasn’t

I’m one of the lucky ones
and I’m still crying every day

poetry

Krista Reinoceroferous and the Stone Cold Sober Dog

Posted on
Corey Bee's trousers.

Krista Reinoceroferous and the Stone Cold Sober Dog

This poem is inspired by Krista’s post to the 80027 – OhOh27 – The Original OhOh27 Facebook group inviting folks to share their silly (and sweet) stories about what they grabbed while evacuating from the Marshall Fire. Photos by Corey Bee and Joanna Cagan.

Krista invites us to laugh
at our terror-fogged brains
and we do, and go limp with relief

we giggle at all the truly odd odds and ends
that made it into our evacuating cars
and the essentials that unaccountably didn’t

first, the treasured foods:
cherry pie and sumo oranges
a pot of hot soup on a lap in gridlock for hours
and the vegan family’s subsistence bean dip
the frozen pizzas from Chicago
and the precious stored breastmilk
(which every pumping mother totally gets)
and the Brits’ Marmite and the Aussies’ Vegamite
all spared to nurture our senses of humor now

then, the impractical wardrobe essentials:
the cherry red crushed velvet bell bottoms
the toddler’s cast and the single sneaker
lots of uncomfortable bras packed by hopeful husbands
and a surprising quantity of skis and swimsuits

there are the touching tokens of responsibility:
the friend’s borrowed thesis
and tons of library books
the holiday reading log and the science project
the ashes of people and pets not keen on being cremated twice
spare tires and Covid cards
and a healthy number of work computers
intentionally left in the fire’s path
(work-life balance…)

my favorites are the truly inexplicable
like the cowbell or the stapler
the kitchen knives or the TV remote
and especially the Nicki Minaj votive candle

we keep reading not just to laugh
but to be there with all these sweet frantic hurting humans
to treasure that single castle drawing left from years of childhood
to comfort the couple worried about the candle on the Sagamore coffee table
to listen to both sides of the argument
about whether the firebox should have been allowed to fulfill its destiny
to root for the playing of those Beatles 45s someday

we’re all so delightfully flawed
fallible and irrational
quirky and lovable
and so very in need of a good laugh these days
so thankful for the vulnerability and care
and not-taking-oneself-too-seriously in the 0027
and so very proud of each person
who crammed a goat in their Honda Pilot that day
(or the equivalent)

poetry

Learning about the Marshall Fire

Posted on
My sister took this photo from her home on LaFarge Avenue shortly before evacuating.

This is in response to a prompt by Peter Rousmaniere, who is coordinating a project about the Marshall Fire involving local writers and photographers. He suggests, “Write down how you learned on December 30, what you did, and what were your very initial thoughts. Try to recall the details, for with details we often store in memory our emotions.” If you’d like to participate, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/cdD4q1bMyhTkgzgo8. I have posted this photo before, but it is exactly how I learned about the fire.

Learning about the Marshall Fire

the news reached me vacationing in Fairplay
as a text from my sister who lives three blocks from us
a photo of the grey view from her Old Town upstairs
complaining about the smoke saying two fires were burning

too thick to be distant
but too deep into winter to seem threatening
and there not being much else to do in our cabin
I checked the Daily Camera website to see what I could learn

a grass fire in Marshall, fairly unremarkable
until I saw the single line that meant things weren’t okay:
Superior also released a statement
calling for all residents to be evacuated.

(our border is somewhat arbitrary
I’d thought Highway 36 until earlier this fall
when my booster shot appointment at the “Louisville” Walgreens
on McCaslin proved to have a Superior address)

I sent my sister a screenshot
and she texted back What?!?!
I went on Facebook and then Twitter
and found homes had begun to burn

when I saw the post of burning shrubs
at Via Appia and McCaslin
flames already uncomfortably close to Old Town
I called her and said I think you need to leave

How am I supposed to do that? she asked
meaning escape with toddler and four-year old and skittish dog
meaning grab some essentials and safely hustle into the car
meaning manage all the meltdowns and figure out where to go

There are flames at Via Appia and McCaslin
I repeated urgently
you need to get in the car and go.
Come to us in Fairplay, but get out now.

She called from the stalled traffic
and I tried not to think of flames advancing
warned her don’t go west
and 93 is closed

I didn’t take a deep breath until she was safely in Boulder
and then turned my attention to our three Louisville homes:
hers, my mom’s, and ours.
it wasn’t until the next day we learned that all three still stood

poetry

what it takes to save a town

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Louisville’s Public Works and Utilities team: Chris DePalma, Cory Peterson, Ben Francisco, Greg Venette, Shane Mahan, Tom Czajka, Matt Fromandi, Kurt Kowar, & Jeff Owens. (credit: Louisville’s Public Works and Utilities)

what it takes to save a town

we’re just starting to learn
what extreme acts it took
to keep some homes standing

luckily we missed the terror
of knowing all that night –
especially, how the water nearly ran dry

the public works crew drives back to the plant,
the Superior plant is offline
their generator burned
pumps now not running
which means one town’s water
is fighting for two

telephone poles burning beside them
they need to get more gas to the generators
drive fuel through the flame
miraculously, nothing explodes

so many systems down now
the Louisville crew knows
the only way to learn what water’s left
is to actually climb the tank
and peer down inside the hatch
in hurricane winds
in a firestorm

Jeff goes 20 feet up in the air
crawls on his belly
looks down into the gloom
and it’s worse than he thought
only two feet left

Shane and his crew
accompany the firefighters
house by burning house
shutting each charred ruin’s water off
so precious gallons can’t spew from severed pipes

and in an audacious act
Greg and Kurt decide
they’ll do whatever it takes
to feed those firefighter hoses
even throwing open
the precious pipes they’ve always guarded
to raw untreated water
something they’ve never contemplated
something one would never train for

they work 35 hours straight
putting their courage and ingenuity
on the line for our two towns

and, it works
and,
we’re forever thankful