Leaving ‘Cancer Alley’
a decade ago, I was 7 years old, lying on the floor, tossing my Nerf football up in the air, when I saw bright flames through our apartment window. The light came from a fiery plume, expanding from about a mile away from our home in Wilmington, California, painting the sky a burnt orange. My mom bolted through our home, on edge and frightened. She thought the community college, where my older brother was sitting in an evening
