Hub and Spoke.

Audio Collective.

Hi, I'm Willow Bellden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.

Our next season is set to launch in the spring, but in the meantime, we're going to be releasing

several bonus episodes this fall and winter. This is the first of the bonus episodes.

It's a story about fear and why we experience fear where we do.

It goes without saying that the outdoors can be dangerous.

There are wildfires, floods, injuries.

But what happens when disaster occurs in an unexpected place?

What does that do to our fear?

And how does it shape our ability to find joy?

Marina Hanke has the story.

Yeah. Marina Hankey has the story. There's about to be a flood.

I think about floods a lot.

For a while, I was terrified of them.

I imagined what they would look like, where they might be, what it would smell like,

how there's nothing, and then something, all at once.

As a teenager, I spent most summers in the southwest.

That's where I learned about flash floods.

This was red rock country with slot canyons, narrow crevasses.

Even just 30 minutes of rain can turn a dry riverbed into just a really deadly current. Out west every year, people die from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You learn to read the skies, to not camp in certain areas,

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