The alert came just after breakfast. Maya was rinsing her cup when the television interrupted itself with a loud emergency tone. “Severe thunderstorms approaching the region within a few hours” A few seconds later, her phone lit up with the same message, followed by a mechanical voice from the kitchen radio.
She moved quickly. For someone her age, anyway. At seventy, Maya wasn’t fast, but she was focused. She shuffled to the pantry and began collecting supplies—snacks, bottles of water, two apples—and carried them down to the basement in small batches. The wind outside had already started to whistle faintly.