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I'm your host, Elise Hugh.

The soundtrack for The Apocalypse might be silent.

Or at least, that's how journalist Nani de la Pena describes walking through the neighborhoods burned by the January 2025 Southern California

wildfires. Block after block, with no cars, no children, no birds, no sound at all. I remember back

then we could hardly see because of all of the neighborhoods so destroyed and the burnt smells thick in the air.

But very few sounds.

I know personally, when you're looking at what is the remains of what had been a vibrant life,

you can't help but feel like everything is gone.

There's a code among journalists to bear witness and write the first draft of history.

For Nani, that has meant showing up with whatever technology it takes to make people feel what she

sees.

She is a pioneer of immersive journalism, a form of storytelling that puts you inside the story,

not just in front of it.

So when the fires tore through her hometown of

Los Angeles and where she herself lost everything, she suited up in hazmat gear, mobilized her

graduate students, and went out to document what was left. She shares what she found and how she

used technology and storytelling to help the rest of the world bear witness to what happened and what's to come.

Silence is not emptiness.

It's a place to reflect and remember

to imagine wild ways we can rebuild

and to consider what really endorse.

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