Evan’s Story

Title

Evan’s Climate Story

Name

Evan Lu  

Place

North Philadelphia 19140, year 2012 

How are you sensing climate change?

The violent winds lifted me up into the air. It would’ve succeeded if it wasn’t for my dad anchoring me down. “Let go of the umbrella”, he screamed. I watched as my umbrella flew away. Up, up into the dark stormy mass.

It was just like any other Autumn day in 2012, but the sky looked ominous, and my parents were preparing to close down the shop. “There wasn’t going to be many customers anyways”, they said. We decided to head over to a friend’s house since we had nothing better to do. As we stayed, the weather continuously worsened. Winds became gusts. The shower became a downpour. Amber alerts blared. My parents began to worry, perhaps they would rather stay home to fix anything that may go wrong instead of with others. Whatever the reason was, we sped back home. The scale of Hurricane Sandy was gargantuan. To a 7-year-old, this was the end of the world. Never have I seen something like this. The pounding of heavy rainfall on our car’s roof sounded like the drums welcoming the apocalypse. Small puddles became pools (they were quite fun to drive over), and traces of the wind within the rain patterns were illuminated by the street lamps. As we arrived, I prepared to rush inside. The distance between our car and our house’s entrance was not big at all. A few dozen feet at most. The inexperienced me brought out my trusty umbrella. Oh, how naive I was.

How do these changes make you feel?

Even today, the feeling of being picked up by the wind remained with me. It warned me of the dangers of messing with mother nature. Even as far up the east coast as I was, I still felt the intensity of the dying storm. As climate change worsens, I fear what may lie ahead of us.