Exactly a year ago today I walked outside to see a towering plume of smoke 6mi from my house. I thought I could report on it like any other fire. But what became the Almeda Fire spread rapidly, detroying thousands of my neighbors' homes and barely sparing mine. [thread]
https://twitter.com/AprilEhrlich/status/1303436453775577089
My husband & I packed our small car with 2 dogs & 2 cats and headed to a friend's house in South Medford. Then I hit the road to do some reporting. 
I saw flames billowing from the freeway. No one on the ground seemed to know what was going on. Later I had to evacuate again as the fire tore through the towns of Talent and Phoenix. We didn't know where to go. North seemed safe, so we went to Grants Pass.
That night I slept in a friend's smoky backyard on patio furniture with the dogs (we didn't want to leave them alone outside.) I maybe slept a few minutes, then woke at 3am for a live interview on @NPR. I didnt know if my house was still standing. npr.org/2020/09/09/911…
Around that time a friend messaged me a video. It showed my street up in flames. But just as the cameraman turned a corner, I got a glimpse of my house. It was still there. It gave me hope. I did another interview, this time w @OPB. opb.org/article/2020/0…
Road blocks and power outages lasted more than a week. I didn't get to see my house for a few days, when I rode my bike into the evac zone with cyclists delivering food to people who feared that if they left their homes, they wouldnt get back in. npr.org/2020/09/11/912…
I was left with so many questions. Why didn't I get an evacuation alert? Why didn't emergency officials provide crucial evac info to my newsroom? Why wasn't the ESA triggered? Why did it seem like no one was prepared for this? I wrote this essay for @CJR cjr.org/first_person/w…
As the months went by I started hearing from people who were having trouble getting federal disaster assistance. I requested some data and found that FEMA denied more than 70 percent of applicants. That turned into an investigation w @NPR: npr.org/2021/07/01/101…
It's been a heck of a year since. I had some hard times getting through it. This fire wasn't the only challenge: there was the pandemic, and also my arrest three weeks after the fire. At one point I broke down and screamed until I lost my voice.
But — and I have no idea why — I'm feeling a lot better now. I still have a hard time looking at my flattened neighborhood. But homes are starting to pop up again. Things are healing. And I see a path forward.
I'm so grateful to have been part of the @JPRnews team through all this. They've been incredibly supportive. We've also kicked a-- in covering this crucial event in our region's history. You can check out our coverage here: [end] ijpr.org/wildfire/2021-…
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