[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Weather in the Storm stories of the climate crisis from Alberta and around the world. This series is part of the community podcast initiative in partnership with the Climate Disaster Project.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Welcome, everyone, to Weather in the storm stories of Climate Cris podcast. I am your host, Fatima Nai.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: And I am Ryan McMillan. In today's episode, we are speaking with survivors of floods. Even though their stories are from different decades and places, we can still learn a lot from them.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Climate change has been drastically reshaping our planet for decades. With each new story, our awareness of climate change grows in forms or attitudes. Zandab NY, who is my mother, was in Liberia in 1996 while pregnant with her first child, which is my older sister. When rainy season swept through Liberia in the county of Plummee Hill, she had to know how to navigate that while pregnant. And this is my interview with my mother.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: Hello everyone. Today I have a very exciting interview.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: With none other than my mother.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Can you introduce yourself?
[00:01:11] Speaker D: Hello. My name is Zena Nyang.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Can you please spell it, your first.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Name and your last name for me?
[00:01:19] Speaker D: And my first name is Z-A-I-N-A-B.
Last name? N-Y-E-I.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Can you tell me more about who.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: You were growing up?
[00:01:29] Speaker D: Well now, growing up, my mom and my dad, we were farming. Farming, right?
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Yeah, farmers.
[00:01:36] Speaker D: My mom and dad, they are farmers. They were farmers and we used to go on the farm plant rice and beans. Rice, okra.
And how do you call it?
[00:01:52] Speaker C: Pepper?
[00:01:53] Speaker D: Everything.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Could you tell me more about what you were doing before the rainy season?
[00:01:59] Speaker D: Farming.
Just farming.
[00:02:03] Speaker C: Could you tell me about the people you were living with at the time?
[00:02:08] Speaker D: Before and I wasn't living with my parents, but I just took those people to be my parent.
It was hard, but I nailed it. Yes, they were very hard living with people that they are not your parent. But that's how life goes sometimes.
So I experience a lot of things there during the release and when I was growing up, when the rain is falling, we at least take off all our clothes under the rain, taking shower, getting water from the rain, all of that.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Can you tell me about the people that you often took care of when you were there when the rainy season came?
[00:03:09] Speaker D: The people I was living with, let's say my mom and my dad.
[00:03:15] Speaker C: So those are the people you're taking care of at the time?
[00:03:17] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:03:18] Speaker C: So who took care of you at the time?
[00:03:23] Speaker D: When I was growing up?
[00:03:25] Speaker C: Yeah, at the time. Like rainy season, when growing up in the rainy season?
[00:03:28] Speaker D: Yeah, in the rainy season. I said I was not living with my mom and dad when I was growing up, but then later on I came to my mom and my dad. So when it's rainy season, my mom and my dad take care of me. Or when I was young, living with those people. Rainy season, they take care of me.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Can you tell me how you came to be in Bumi Hill at the time of the rainy season?
How did you get to Hill?
[00:03:56] Speaker D: Because that's my place.
[00:03:59] Speaker C: How did you go to like how did you come to Bumi Hill? Who dropped you there? Since you were young at the time? Right.
[00:04:08] Speaker D: I was young at the time. But there's a town they just call the Area Bombing.
[00:04:18] Speaker C: Bombing?
[00:04:18] Speaker D: Yeah, they call it the area bombing. But they have the city there they call Bombing Hill. But we were not in the city bombing. Hill. We were on the highway here they have Kyrie, they have Brooks, so they have those town. Yes. So we were living in one town they call Gwitown.
Yes.
The people I was living with, the lady, she is coming from Guitar. That's a town well, for my own town, my town where my mother, my father lived before is Bieken.
So after I was listening with these people, when I grew up 13 years old and I came back to my parents, to my parents all the time, I will listen to my parents until they walk in. Yes.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: Can you tell me about what the community was like before winning season?
How did it look?
[00:05:27] Speaker D: Good, it looked good. We're doing a residency, especially doing a very nasty, very nasty, I'm telling you.
[00:05:39] Speaker C: Okay, describe it.
[00:05:42] Speaker D: Disgusting.
Very disgusting.
When it's released in Liberia and when you come in the city, because I live in the city and Morozia Mosaw, their horse, our living in the room, the crab.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: Crab.
[00:06:02] Speaker D: Crab. We catch the crab from the room.
We catch a crab from the from the room because when you rain, the water enter the room and then the crab enter the room and make a way to enter the house. So enter the room. And when we have the opportunity to eat crab and when you get outside what I'm saying, I'm not lying, I'm saying the truth. And you will see the poop over the water coming in the Hallequality Piazza. How do you call it?
[00:06:43] Speaker C: The living room?
[00:06:45] Speaker D: It's like living room where we cook everything. You can see they poop over the water like that until when the wind don't fall in. Then the water go down. When you go down, then we sweep, we waste water, we clean everything. Very nasty. Very nasty.
[00:07:05] Speaker C: Okay. Can you describe how you became aware of the rainy season?
[00:07:09] Speaker D: I live there, so when it rains, I know that it's raining like Kyrie here or Canala. So when it snow, I know that it's snowing. So that's how I know about the rain. When you rain, they say it's raining, it's raining. You grow up with air, so you know that when it's raining, you know that it's raining.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Can you describe what you remember happening to you during the rainy season?
[00:07:32] Speaker D: Hunger during the rainy season. There's no food during rainy season. In Liberia to get Cassava. Cassava is really, really difficult. You will walk distance before you get cassava? Yes. Rice. And the people who sell the rice, the measurement cup they call it, they cut the measurement cup. And when you go buy the rice, they flip it around like this. They flip it around somehow they will flip it around somehow. They take the back of the measurement cup.
They put it in the bag so that they can get profit. You lose when you go and why you think that the rest you think that you have gotten, it's nothing. Yeah, I live most of my life. Very difficult.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:33] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:08:34] Speaker C: Can you describe any sights, sounds, and smells that you remember?
[00:08:38] Speaker D: Like, what did you see?
[00:08:39] Speaker C: What did you smell? What do you remember from rain season?
[00:08:42] Speaker D: Rain season? I just said rain season. Very nasty. Okay. This is disgusting. Reading season? Yes. When it's raining, I don't want to pull my leg outside because you see lot of stuff, you see diapers, you see cloth, all of that. When it's raining, I don't want to see that.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: Could you describe what you remember happening after winning season?
[00:09:11] Speaker D: After winning season? Yeah. Everywhere is clean. They sweep everything and everywhere is clean. But some parts, when you go there, they have the dump site they call dumper Africa labor. So that dumper, if you go there, or sometimes when you rain, then the water will take the garbage from that dumper and then spray around.
[00:09:44] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:45] Speaker D: Yes. So when the rain is done, so they have to clean up everything? They have to clean up everything.
Yes.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: What effect did the rainy season have on you?
[00:09:57] Speaker D: Yeah, I feel cold and I feel hungry.
Right. Because if you have food, sometimes the place is cold, you don't have the co part to put a coal inside and put a fire. So it's cold, very cold sometimes.
[00:10:18] Speaker C: Can you describe what happened to people, like, how they were affected, the people in the community, how they were affected?
[00:10:26] Speaker D: Yeah, some people was there. I can remember the same thing are happening in our place. When you rain, the water enter the house. Same thing. So when you rain, you see people shovel, they take bucket, shuffling their room, getting the water out, getting the water out until the rain stopped. A lot of people. Yeah.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: Can you describe the effect the rainy season had on the community?
[00:11:01] Speaker D: It's almost the same because there's hunger and cold. Everybody just shoveling their place.
How do they call this thing?
Like the foundation. Foundation will not build the web.
So when you rain the crap, they will dig dig dick and enter the enter the room, and they will pull all the same.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Can you describe the help you received during rainy season? Did you get any help whatsoever, government wise?
[00:11:42] Speaker D: No. For me. I don't see government help me. Vinny CC struggled by ourself.
[00:11:48] Speaker C: So everyone in the community basically struggled.
[00:11:50] Speaker D: Yeah. By yourself. Some of them go and say they are market, they come back.
[00:11:58] Speaker C: Can you talk about the help you would have wanted during rainy season?
[00:12:03] Speaker D: I would like to be warm place, like no water, nothing dry place because okay, this is my bed.
This is my bed. For example, my bed is here and I'm sitting up on a bed like this. The water is down. When I put my leg I put my leg in a river like it's the river. Right.
At the time, if I could have a dry place, very dry place, warm, clean, it was clean. But when you rain, everything gets messed up. So you have to clean up yourself, sweep, sweep, web, everything. All the dead that came in with the wardrobe, you have to clean everything.
[00:12:54] Speaker C: So it was basically just you and you and the people you're living with that were helping yourself.
[00:13:01] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: So you guys are just helping each other and the community too, right?
[00:13:05] Speaker D: You people help everybody.
[00:13:08] Speaker C: But to say there was rainy season ever, let's say you go back to Liberia now, right. And it was rainy season again, what would you want?
[00:13:16] Speaker D: I want my place to be clean if I'm renting. Because the house we're in, it was not our own house. We're renting in the house, we are renting in the house. At least house be a good house, have structure and everything nice, good. But at the time for people to afford, like auster billing. Auster billing is good because when you are there, it's raining, you don't even know that it's raining. But if they have just a house, just bear the house and then make rooms. People don't be the good. Sometimes it's very time I go back there. I want to be in a good house.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: Okay. Looking back on rainy season now, how.
[00:14:06] Speaker D: Do you feel about it now? How do you feel about the rainy season in Liberia? Yeah, I worry about the people there because raining season is like my family. They are there now, but they complain a lot.
They complain a lot, yeah.
[00:14:21] Speaker C: Also, how did you deal with the rainy season and the war and everything?
[00:14:25] Speaker D: How did that affect everything in the wall? Yeah, for the wall, when we're running from the wall and sometimes when we are walking because there's no car, you take the row or the bush row. And sometime when you are walking, the rain come your lockers, you have everything get wet, everybody wet. And you continue going until the rain stop, continue going until the sun will shine, you get dry and you keep going until sometime you go somewhere. If that town, little town, you sleep there. Next day you continue like that.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: And then during the rainy season, you're pregnant with Miriam at the time, right?
[00:15:13] Speaker D: Yes, that was yes.
[00:15:24] Speaker C: How was that, being pregnant, the rain.
[00:15:26] Speaker D: Season, the war, it was difficult, it was hard, yes. I left from the city and I went to the display. They have display camp. My mom and my dad was living there, so I went there, I spent some time there.
I was there for some time.
So they will instinct and cash meet me there in a display camp. I was there during the war in the Dysflicium. It was like, how do you call it thing, the torture the people built for us, for the displace. You pray to God, none of your family to go there, none of your family to even enter in a tolly quality. In a tolly, right?
Yeah, they just buried that like a house, right. And then they made room there. So when you enter in our room.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: Also the squat one, just sit down on like that.
[00:16:39] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:16:40] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:16:40] Speaker D: And they hit alone.
We give you cocoa.
Oh. Because some some of this tolly, when you enter there, you can't stand.
Flies a yummy fly flies a yummy fly upon fly upon fly upon fly you can't stand you have to enter the other one and see the one a little bit better that the smell is not too strong. You use that sometimes the people will come, they say they are sanitation. Sanitation. They come, they will sanitize the place, sanitize wash for one or two days. They said this place, if you go with me, you see the place is this place.
Everything that matter displays again. And poop is everywhere. Everywhere. So during the Winnie CC, we shouldn't go back into our life again.
[00:17:38] Speaker C: What brings you hope for the future?
[00:17:40] Speaker D: What brings me hope?
[00:17:41] Speaker C: What brings you hope for the future?
[00:17:44] Speaker D: Yes. Because I see like during the Winnie CC, or anytime I see some people, I was thinking like, okay, I'm suffering so bad, but when I see other people, I say, oh, I be happy for myself, so that make me happy, give me hope that better days ahead.
So that's what gives me hope. Because sometimes I see myself, I have something to eat other people don't have.
[00:18:25] Speaker C: Okay, but I was asking, I wanted specifically, what brings you hope right now for the future? Now? What brought you hope? What brings you hope for the future? Right now?
[00:18:35] Speaker D: Oh, right now?
[00:18:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:38] Speaker D: I'm alive, so bring me hope. And I have what I'm alive, so it gave me hope to live.
I'm here, I don't have everything I need, but I'm okay.
And my kids are here, they are going to school, no problem.
So that gave me hope.
[00:19:07] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much, ma. That was my interview for the climate disaster relief project. And thank you. I'll see you guys later.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: That was Nye speaking on her experience.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: Of surviving a flood.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: This interview taught me a lot from her perspective. It really shows me just how strong and Zillow, my mother was and still is.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: In our next interview, I sat down with Tom McFadden, a retired Calgary firefighter who volunteers as the Ghost Valley Fire Chief. Hearing Tom's story of the 2013 flood highlights how a small community was affected when the berm protecting their community gave way. A number of extreme events culminated to bring the perfect storm to the region.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: The results of these events were a flood like nothing we had ever seen before and really opened the eyes of many alburans to the effect of climate change.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: And now here's my conversation with Tom McFadden.
[00:20:09] Speaker E: Could you tell me about your career if you retired at that point and what you were doing?
[00:20:15] Speaker F: Yeah, I'd been retired for four years at that point almost exactly because I retired in June of 2009 and we were living here at the time and I'm still active with the local volunteer fire department. So we were home, we'd had a couple of days of steady solid rain and that was a pretty significant event at the time. But yeah, we were here luckily because we managed to save a lot of things and deal with stuff as the flood, just prior to the flood and as it was occurring and then in the aftermath. So was fortunate that I was able to be here at that time.
[00:21:07] Speaker E: And was there anybody or any need that you felt for you to be taken care of at the time of the flood or anybody to take care of you or help you during the time?
[00:21:17] Speaker F: No, that wasn't my mindset at the time.
We did get some assistance from people to help move vehicles and our travel trailer out of the flood zone and up to a safe area at the top of the hill.
My main concern was mostly for my neighbors at the time and that probably comes from being the local district chief for this area with the fire department.
That's where my mindset went, helping people evacuate or telling people when it was time to actually get out as the river started to breach the dike that goes around the community itself.
[00:22:03] Speaker E: Okay, now each person has different memories of these types of disasters and that's why I like to ask you a few of these questions.
Could you describe how you became aware that there was a situation that was going to turn into kind of how do you describe a crisis or that it was a growing concern?
[00:22:21] Speaker F: Well, I think we were aware because there had been a lot of rain and they were describing it as kind of an unusual weather event with a heavy front that had moved up out of the US and stalled kind of in the mountains to the west of Calgary. Obviously because it was affected right from high river up. I think we were probably the furthest north edge of the weather event. So for the days leading up to it, the two days leading up to the event we had been aware of what was going on and there had already started to be some flooding in the high river area and that of course, had made the news.
And again, being involved with the local emergency services, we were kind of kept in the loop by Alberta environment like through our municipal district office and so they would pass on information to me.
We'd been watching the river rise here.
It's not a big river, it's somewhere between a big creek and a little river, but there's a fair span to the width of the valley and the community was protected by smaller, I call it a berm, it's like a levee or a dike around in case of rising water to keep it out of the community. And we'd been watching the water rise and it went from being this fairly small water course going through the middle of the area to starting to fill the valley kind of full width and lot of water.
I don't know, they measured in CFM and it was some phenomenal amount of a normal flow was 100 CFM. I think we went well over 10,000 CFM, which is cubic feet per meter, which is enormously significant.
So we've been keeping an eye on it. When we went to bed the night prior to the flood and the breach of the dike around the community, it was up and I wouldn't even want to guesstimate what the width of the valley was, the depth of the water, but we were pretty close to the top of the dike.
And the morning of the day of the actual flood our phone rang about six in the morning and it was my next door neighbor and she lives where she can see down the road towards the river. And she phoned and said that she could see white caps over the top of the dike. And I was a little skeptical at the time because I'd looked at it at 11:00 that night and we still had another 3ft or so of freeboard, I'll call it on, between the top of the water and the top of the dike. So I got dressed and went down and sure enough, the water was level with the top of the dike and yes, she could see white caps from her living room.
So at that time we started to realize and was still raining.
Then the realization set in that we were in a significant danger because I walked the length of the dike, it goes around the community, it's probably 800, probably a kilometer from one end to the other in this arc that protects the structures on this level down at the river level. And I could see where there was actually water starting to come in, infiltrate through the substructure of the dike itself, which in itself is a significant event.
If something's not done or the water doesn't go down, you're going to get undercutting, which is actually what happened.
So at that point, I came home and discussed it with Elaine and prepare to evacuate, get our vehicles out of here. And I hooked my travel trailer up and took it up to the top of the hill and parked it in my daughter's yard and a minimal amount of stuff that we could get out of here that was critical to us and just kept an eye on it. That morning, and I think it was around 09:00, I was walking the dike with friend of mine, the neighbor, who was the counselor on the municipal district council for this area.
And we were standing on the upstream end of it when we realized that the whole structure, the whole structure of the dike was starting to vibrate and was starting to kind of liquefy under our feet.
So at that time, we didn't wait for the government to tell us anything. Basically, we went, banged on all the neighbors doors and said, get out and get out now. And most of them heeded what we said because they knew it was going to happen. And within an hour it had breached and we had water flowing through the entire community.
[00:28:21] Speaker E: Wow, you've described a whole lot there. Were there any sights or sounds or smells or anything? Just that comes to memory right now. As far as that whole event.
[00:28:34] Speaker F: I think probably just the sight of the water filling the valley. Like I said, we've been here since 1974 and we'd never seen that much water ever.
Which maybe that's what that's hopefully why they call it a one in 100 year event.
So just the sight of that and it was I mean, there was trees, huge trees and debris going by and the speed of the water, you'd see a 40, 50, 60 foot tree going by, like a motorboat going downstream. And it was basically you knew it was water, but it almost looked like just dirt.
There was so much silt and so much debris in it.
[00:29:28] Speaker E: When that dike did breach, were you down here when that happened? And if so, what was it like?
[00:29:37] Speaker F: Yeah, we were still down here.
The majority of the neighbors had evacuated, but of course there were still a few people down here.
I hadn't yet got my quad out of the garage and out of the valley, so there was probably a foot or two of water that had undercut the upstream section of the dike and had infiltrated into the community.
So I managed to get that out and I just took it up one level and parked it on the side of the road. And then my daughter happened to come down and we thought, well, we couldn't go down the road anymore. I knew that because of the amount of water that was flowing through there. And I think by this time, pretty much all the neighbors were out of here.
I think we're the only property down here with a basement because we're close to the hill and I never anticipated any kind of a problem.
So my daughter Amy came down with me and we came down through the trees on the back of the property, through my neighbor's yard into the property and thought we could go down into the basement of the house and start to maybe try and salvage some stuff.
That's just the way your mind works. And in hindsight, it wasn't funny at the time and it seems kind of humorous now with the amount of water that was coming through and the eventual damage that was done.
There we were, because Michael and Amy, when they were teenagers, there was two bedrooms down there, they lived down there, those were their rooms. There was a rumpus room down there. We had a lot of stuff stored in the basement, family heirloom stuff, mementos photos, all kinds of stuff. And it seems like I said silly or semi foolish looking back on it now, but there we were picking up stuff off the floor and putting it on the bed, thinking that that would keep it from getting wet. Little did I know there'd be six and a half feet of water in that basement before the event was over with pretty much what it did. But we heard this loud bang and we go to check it out and see what it is. And I realized that there's enough water in the basement now because it's up past our knees, our boots are full of water, we're still trying to do stuff down there. And we had a chest freezer in the furnace room and it floated. It was full of food, but there was enough water there that it floated. And the bang we heard was the lid flopping open.
So again, that's just the way your mind works at the time, thought, well, we'll take the freezer and wedge it in the doorway on its side so it won't stay upright, but the lid won't flop open and the food in it's all wrapped.
Know we'll be able to salvage that. And it was kind of at that point that Amy and I looked at each other and went, I think it's probably time we got out of here. And we came upstairs onto the deck, and the deck's 4ft off the ground, but there was probably 3ft of water going through the entire property. It was probably 3ft deep going across the back lawn. And we had to kind of hang on to each other and wade our way across the backyard. At least. It's not like doing that blind in a river. You don't know. We knew the backyard and we knew it's grass, it's safe and we're not going to fall in a hole.
But the water flowing through here was fast, dirty, cold, strong.
And we hung onto each other and made our way across the backyard and from tree to tree until we could get up the slope and empty our boots out of water and trudge up the hill. And then go to a lookout point and just look down and just see not only at the dike burst and where the river had been just on one side of the valley, it now had spread across the entire valley. And my guess, it would have been on average three to 4ft deep.
[00:34:05] Speaker E: Could you describe the effect that this flood had on you?
[00:34:10] Speaker F: I don't feel there's a lot of lasting effects from it.
Of course, in the spring and late spring and early summer when it starts to rain, we definitely keep an eye on things now, have a different idea on how to deal with it or how to prepare for it. You can't prepare for it, but you can prepare yourself with a plan if this happens again. Okay, what did we do wrong and what will we do differently? So there's that aspect of it, it makes you nervous. Any major rain event and you start to watch the river rise, you start to get a little concerned and start to develop. Okay, make sure we have this, what's critical to us, whether it's photos or important paperwork.
[00:35:10] Speaker E: So could you describe what effect that the flood had on the community?
[00:35:15] Speaker F: Well, it affected a lot of people differently.
Like I said, there was ten properties down here at the time.
One, two, three of them, and lost their stood and watched their house.
One family watched their whole house and everything in it get washed away, destroyed.
A couple of the properties were destroyed after the fact because of underpinning and structural integrity was compromised to the point where it couldn't be salvaged.
I made the community more aware.
The thing we found was that was interesting was because it was so widespread, the response and being on the periphery of it. Although we were enormously affected personally, we were a small micro percentage of the people that were affected. When you think of High River and Turner Valley and Canmore Eckshaw, there was phenomenal flooding going on in Exhaust. They were isolated for three or four days because of road washouts and stuff.
So they had their own issues to deal with. So what I found was that the community came together fairly quickly within the fire service. We have a volunteer group out here and the support was phenomenal for me personally as well as for everybody within this area.
The majority of people relied on family to help them out.
[00:37:08] Speaker E: And then how did this make you feel about climate change?
[00:37:11] Speaker F: Well, honestly, I'm not enough of an expert to say, but the climate is changing. I've been out here and anybody that has lived anywhere with open eyes can realize that things are changing. The only thing that people should have the discussion about is the why and wherefore, right. You just can't deny it.
And I'm not sure, I think maybe that's a. Label that gets put on people by another segment of the whole discussion, denying denying that the climate's changing is, I think, specious climate is changing, but it's the causes of it. And if you look historically, there have been hot. I mean, how many ice ages were there, right? So the climate of the Earth changes and whether what percentage or to what degree mankind has a responsibility in that can be debated ad nauseam.
[00:38:33] Speaker E: Now, people who have lived through climate disasters often have solutions to the problems that they face.
So, I mean, you kind of touched on a couple of them, but I'd just like to ask, what do you think could be done to help people like yourself? Or what do you think should be done to kind of plan for these events going forward from here?
[00:38:55] Speaker F: Could anything have been done differently? Well, TransAlta did build a much better engineered, wider base, higher berm around here. Can they protect you know, they're doing some mitigation, upstream mitigation projects from Calgary that are still undergoing if you drive down through to, you know, they're still working on that huge dry dam and all the rest of it. I drive down there. We went that way yesterday and I looked at it and went, I don't know what they're doing. I look, they're moving a lot of dirt. Somebody's got a plan. Will it be effective?
I sincerely hope that we'll never have to find out whether it's effective or not again. In emergency services and in life, there's an axiom if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Which basically means if you don't look at all the possibilities and develop some sort of a plan, then you're doomed to fail in whatever you do.
[00:40:00] Speaker E: What brings you hope for the future?
[00:40:03] Speaker F: I grew up in a time when things know, Vietnam War was on and things were the worry about nuclear conflict between the US and Russia and those days. And we all know as we grew up to be teenagers, we all thought we had the answers. Young adults, I like to think the future of the world, it's always in the hands of the next generation, in my case now the generation of grandchildren to make a difference.
Humanity is pretty resilient.
Look back through history. I mean, civilizations rise and fall, but humanity continues to exist in one way, shape or form.
[00:40:50] Speaker E: Sounds good. Thank you very much, Tom. I appreciate it.
[00:40:53] Speaker F: You're welcome.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: That was my interview with Tom McFadden and I really appreciated his candid nature and perspective on the 2013 Kalgi flood. Having the oversight and responsibility of a community on his shoulders while being intimately affected by the flood opened my eyes to the many layers of this disaster.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: The effects were wide ranging and we really hope this episode challenged you in your understanding of climate change.
Thanks for listening to Weathering the Storm stories of the climate crisis from Alberta and around the world. I'm Fatima nai.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: And I'm Ryan McMillan. This series is powered by Shaw and part of the Community Podcast Initiative based out of Mount Royal University, Earth, produced.
[00:41:39] Speaker B: On the lands that are homes to the Iyahe, Nakota, tutsina and peoples. We recognize the stewards of these lands and we hope to contribute to a better understanding of our environment by sharing the stories of those affected by climate change.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Special thanks to our partner, the Climate Disaster Project, and to Zein Evnai and Tom McFadden for joining us. You can learn more about the climate disaster project.
[email protected].
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Be sure to subscribe to the show to hear the latest weathering the storm and discover new podcasts from the Community Podcast Initiative at thepodcastudio CA.
