WEBVTT 00:00:01.929 --> 00:00:05.730 we are the holden family. I'm Ellie this is 00:00:05.730 --> 00:00:10.250 my husband James and our five kids and we are 00:00:10.259 --> 00:00:15.859 originally from paradise California. Um and we are basically 00:00:15.859 --> 00:00:21.320 climate refugees. We came to Vermont after we lost 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:25.760 our home, lost our entire town and surrounding towns 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:31.210 to the campfire. And we were looking for a 00:00:31.210 --> 00:00:34.200 place that we would never have to go through something 00:00:34.200 --> 00:00:39.920 like that again. And Vermont is where we landed 00:00:43.630 --> 00:00:48.149 . City data is a website that has weather, 00:00:48.299 --> 00:00:53.520 you know, money information, incidents of tornadoes and 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.719 hurricanes and earthquakes and all that kind of stuff. 00:00:56.719 --> 00:00:59.359 Crime statistics, all of that. So that that 00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:02.039 was very helpful in comparing you know, place to 00:01:02.039 --> 00:01:04.489 place. Zillow was a good source for finding out 00:01:04.489 --> 00:01:10.310 like you can afford there to buy a home or 00:01:10.310 --> 00:01:12.250 land. But other than that a lot of it 00:01:12.250 --> 00:01:18.659 really was just you know researching what areas have, 00:01:18.659 --> 00:01:19.599 what type of problems and what am I willing to 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:23.359 deal with? What thing do you do first? 00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:25.859 Do you buy a home? Do you find a 00:01:25.859 --> 00:01:27.340 job? Do you find a community? The answer 00:01:27.340 --> 00:01:30.590 for us was you had to find a job because 00:01:30.370 --> 00:01:33.849 yeah we had some money to move across the country 00:01:33.849 --> 00:01:34.590 and to buy a house but you don't want to 00:01:34.590 --> 00:01:38.200 burn all that money up living without a job. 00:01:38.200 --> 00:01:38.629 And what if you move to a place where the 00:01:38.629 --> 00:01:42.939 jobs are not plentiful. I think our biggest fear 00:01:42.939 --> 00:01:46.120 in all of this was being homeless again, we 00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:48.799 never wanted to lose our home again. So we 00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:52.620 didn't want to find the most perfect farm and buy 00:01:52.620 --> 00:01:53.780 it. but then realized, oh we can't afford 00:01:53.780 --> 00:01:57.120 it because there's no jobs within three hours. So 00:01:57.120 --> 00:02:00.319 the job kind of became our thing too. Pick 00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:06.599 the place. People didn't hate us after the fire 00:02:06.609 --> 00:02:07.259 . That's a big one. We didn't have to 00:02:07.259 --> 00:02:09.710 cross any, we didn't cross any borders. We 00:02:09.710 --> 00:02:13.289 don't didn't have to, you know, illegally move 00:02:13.289 --> 00:02:16.620 into a country because there's better work opportunities. Nobody 00:02:16.620 --> 00:02:20.110 was shooting at us when we were fleeing the fire 00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:23.280 . So we recognize that we're pretty privileged to be 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:25.400 able to do this even as hard as it is 00:02:25.409 --> 00:02:28.750 . One thing that it gave us was a lot 00:02:28.750 --> 00:02:32.180 more empathy to people and their situations. It's still 00:02:32.340 --> 00:02:37.039 , I'm very happy that we left. It was 00:02:37.039 --> 00:02:39.379 hard. It's the hardest thing that we've ever done 00:02:39.620 --> 00:02:44.629 . Um We felt that loss for a long time 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:46.770 being away from home being away from our community and 00:02:46.770 --> 00:02:52.840 friends. Um but fire season is not just a 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:55.139 season anymore, it's year round. The drought is 00:02:55.139 --> 00:02:59.449 constant. Um I see our friends and the things 00:02:59.449 --> 00:03:01.319 that they're going through, still trying to rebuild their 00:03:01.319 --> 00:03:05.669 homes. I wouldn't be able to deal with that 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:07.120 worry. Every year of fire season