{"id":75,"date":"2019-10-27T09:48:11","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T09:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=75"},"modified":"2020-03-01T15:14:46","modified_gmt":"2020-03-01T15:14:46","slug":"how-to-survive-a-man-made-natural-disaster-by-sophia-aged-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/how-to-survive-a-man-made-natural-disaster-by-sophia-aged-9\/75\/","title":{"rendered":"How to survive a (man-made) natural disaster, by Sophia, aged 9"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How to survive a (man-made) natural\ndisaster, by Sophia, aged 9<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Don\u2019t rely on the grown-ups<\/em><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The climate change\nscientists warned that the wave was coming. But that was before the government silenced\nthem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Our parents were\nall too busy arguing about Brexit to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cDad?\u201d I said, \u201cCan\nwe move to the Midlands?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cIs this about that\ntsunami nonsense again?\u201d he laughed, stuffing yet another loaf of emergency No-Deal-Brexit\nbread into the freezer. \u201cIt\u2019s scientifically impossible, Sophia.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

    We tried talking to\nthe teachers, but they just said, \u201cback to your times tables!\u201d As if Maths was\ngoing to help at a time like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Then we went all Greta\nThunberg, marching with banners, but the grown-ups still wouldn\u2019t listen. Grown-ups\nare like that. They make up their minds and then they lock them, click-clunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I started talking\nto the moon at night. \u201cEarth needs help,\u201d she said. \u201cYou children must be\nbrave. Save yourselves and then save Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. Plan<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The climate change\nexperts helped us, sharing secret updates on Chitter (children\u2019s Twitter). All\nover Britain, children made plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We gathered tents,\ncamping equipment, and food stolen from our parents\u2019 Brexit stockpiles, and\nstored them in one of the outbuildings at Clyne Farm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s nearly time,\u201d\nsaid the moon. \u201cBe ready\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. Stick together<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We were at school when\nthe siren sounded, in a frequency only children could hear. That was our 15-minute\nwarning. Two boys pretended to have a fight to distract the teachers, and we\nall raced up the hill.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We huddled\ntogether, hand-in-hand, overlooking Swansea Bay from Clyne farm. Jack, my\nlittle brother, squeezed my hand so tightly it went numb. When I looked down I\ncould see that he had wet himself. Some kids sobbed. Others prayed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    From Kilvey Hill to\nThree Cliffs, children watched the wave come. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It was almost\nbeautiful, if only it wasn\u2019t real. I held my breath as the sea retreated and\ndisappeared. For a few moments, the sand glistened like gold in the sunlight and\nthe houses below looked like sleeping lambs. The farm animals fell silent. Even\nthe wind stopped. And then it came. Like a wall of soldiers riding into battle,\nit thundered towards the city, towering above even the tallest buildings. A\nmoment of darkness as it blocked the sun, and then it exploded with a roar, destroying\neverything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    4. Have hope<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It\u2019s day 5. We\u2019re\nwaiting to be rescued, but we have enough supplies for now. I can\u2019t think about\nMum and Dad. Jack cries himself to sleep every night and I hold him close and\nsing the song that Mum used to sing, but I can\u2019t remember all the words and I\nwish I had asked her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Floating debris\nbatters the banks of our new island. Reflected in the water, the moon smiles at\nme. She washed up one of our old banners yesterday, as a gift. Its message, scribbled\nin childish writing, spurs us on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cWhen your children\nact like leaders and your leaders act like children, you know change is\ncoming.\u201d Mikel Jollett.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How to survive a (man-made) natural disaster, by Sophia, aged 9 Don\u2019t rely on the grown-ups The climate change scientists warned that the wave was coming. But that was before the government silenced them. Our parents were all too busy arguing about Brexit to help. \u201cDad?\u201d I said, \u201cCan we move to the Midlands?\u201d  \u201cIs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,21],"tags":[36,34,29,32,31,33,35,30],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-october","tag-aged","tag-disaster","tag-how","tag-made","tag-man","tag-natural","tag-sophia","tag-survive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-1d","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/98"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}