The Welcome Table

Josh Fox: People have always migrated.

Always looking for that elusive home on the horizon.

What tells us we're welcome?

John Boutté: What tells us we're home?

[Francesco Creazzo speaking English]

[Camille McKayle speaking English]

[MAGA protester speaking English]

Boutté: We invite you to our table on the levee.

Fox: There's no tablecloth.

But each thread of our stories weaves a tapestry.

Boutté: The people at this table

crossed many rivers to get here.

Fox: People from every continent

who have been displaced by climate change...

meeting here for the first time

to ask, where is home now?

Boutté: Sit with us and hear our stories.

We begin with a family

whose paradise burned all around them.

Hello, I'm Allie.

My life was beautiful and blessed.

Our home was such a special place.

During the fire when we got gridlocked,

we were all stuck.

The firefighters were stuck up there, too.

And there's this song,

I think a Bee Gees song, on the radio.

There's propane tanks blowing up.

And then firefighters told us to abandon our vehicles

and run to the nearest parking lot,

because the fire was coming.

["Stayin' Alive" by Bee Gees playing]

- -

["Stayin' Alive" pauses and resumes]

Jason Harbor: This is... This was it.

Yeah, this used to be my JBL

PRX Dual 15 professional loudspeaker.

I do sound reinforcement DJ and stuff.

We hadn't had any official warning.

- Fox: There was no warning? - Harbor: No.

There was no public warning or anything.

You just heard explosions.

Just constant explosions.

Could hear the propane tanks starting to blow up,

and that's when I knew that this fire

is within a mile of us.

- Allie: We're at... All gone. -

Right over there is where you could see the fire.

It was orange.

What did they say was the number?

Like, 800 football fields in a minute?

Harbor: Eighty football fields a minute.

Allie: It's big. It's fast.

Harbor: This right here would have been our bedroom.

She was born right there.

Allie: The home was her first thing she knew.

And I just looked around and I'm like, what do I grab?

Harbor: Hmm.

And I had the baby, you know,

who's crying 'cause she's hungry.

And then I'm also trying to pack for all of us at the same time.

The road we were trapped on is basically

just right through the trees here.

We got on the road

and just instantly

got caught in gridlock.

I don't think we made it two miles from our house.

Allie: I was sitting in the car,

and I was just thinking, like,

"This is not how I go.

"This is not how I go.

"Just brought a baby into this world.

"This is not how we go.

"I got all these kids with me.

This is not how we go."

Fox: Allie, Jason, and their family

were the lucky ones.

Boutté: Eighty-five people died,

and everything in Paradise burned away.

Fox: In our new climate-changed planet,

it's hotter and drier than ever before.

Boutté: A common wildfire is now a climate inferno.

Fox: A glimpse of the apocalypse.

Burned-up and then liquefied baby bottles.

- Boutté: Tires. - Fox: Dashboards.

Boutté: Formica counters, microwaves.

Fox: Liquid crystal display televisions.

- Boutté: Satellite dishes. - Fox: Sneakers.

Boutté: Plastic containers for organic baby arugula.

Fox: Cameras, clothes.

Boutté: The only place that didn't burn

were parking lots.

Fox: You can return the shopping cart

to its little shopping cart pen.

But the supermarket isn't there anymore.

Harbor: Eventually, a police officer

was getting everyone out of their vehicles

and said that we were now on foot.

So, everyone on the road just took off running.

They had told us to go to this parking lot.

This whole parking lot here was full of evacuees, yeah.

At first, it was really, really scary.

With fire all around us, there was nowhere to go.

It was just raining embers.

Later, they said, okay, we have a path cleared.

If you have a car still, get in it.

Keep going. Don't veer off.

You'll risk everyone else. Just go.

Fox: Did you have a lot of smoke inhalation?

Harbor: Oh, yeah, they didn't have masks.

My boys had this piece of cloth that they each used

that later when I washed 'em, they were so dirty, just black.

You'd see RVs everywhere, or in people's yards everywhere.

They just...

You can tell they're set up for living.

The number I've been hearing about displaced people

is something like 22,000.

Fox: These are modern-day refugees.

Climate refugees,

living just 30 miles down the road

in a van in Chico.

Boutté: Is this the future?

The American dream collapsing all around us.

From sea to shining sea, there is no security.

Fox: Where will we be safe?

There is no geographical answer.

[playing Radiohead's "No Surprises"]

Fox: From coast to coast, fires, floods,

extreme weather of all kinds.

Boutté: The fabric of American stability has frayed,

the threads unraveling.

American cities being destroyed

faster than they can be rebuilt.

Colorado resident: None of us would have ever suspected

that a fire like that

would come through a neighborhood like this.

Picture perfect.

Kids playing in the yard. It could happen to anybody.

It's a matter of when, not if, at this point.