Looking for your next great read about weather and natural disasters? You’ve come to the right place.

Severe weather is a fact of life in Alabama. The tornados come every spring and fall, and residents watch the radar, listen for alerts, and head for shelters because we know that failure to do so can mean death. If you talk to anyone who’s lived here for any length of time, they have a tornado story to tell. A “big one” that they’ve lived through. They can tell you exactly where they were when it hit and what happened in the aftermath.

For my family, the “big one” was the Super Outbreak of tornados of April 27, 2011. Severe weather was in the forecast, and we knew it would be bad. But not that bad. Tornado paths stretched for thousands of miles, and one town was hit twice in the same day. Hundreds of people died, and thousands were injured. Hundreds of thousands were left without power.

Severe weather in Alabama and the opioid epidemic seems like an unusual combination to inspire a YA book. I know.

How did these two meet?

I wanted to write a book about opioid abuse because it was a subject that had both national and personal significance. Like so many, I personally knew someone struggling with addiction and recovery from narcotics abuse, and I wanted to explore this tough topic for better understanding of their journey. And in crafting a novel, I needed some additional story conflict to drive the plot, and this storm became my inspiration for the setting.

Addiction is a storm that ravages individuals. Like a tornado, it can obliterate everything and leave whole families destitute. Once I introduced these two elements, opioid abuse and the Super Outbreak of tornados, writing the story and the symbolic elements behind its themes came very naturally.

A rare book

After writing a novel that combined bad weather with drug abuse, I was very surprised to find that there were so few young adult books about this topic. Finding “comps” to place Swallow the Rainbow with was a real challenge. Considering the impact of the opioid epidemic on young people, this seems odd. Overdosing is a leading cause of death.

Maybe the reason is that writing about tough topics, like tornados, means hunkering in the darkness for some time while the windows howl. There’s a lot of risk that the whole house might collapse around you. A lot of people are terrified of severe storms.

I am.

Since the April 27 Super Outbreak, I’m scared whenever we have severe weather. I want to be close to the storm shelter. I want to be prepared. I know what can come from the sky. In Savannah’s very wise words from Swallow the Rainbow:

We lived through the most historic super outbreak of tornados ever recorded, and they are still adding up the number of tornados, costs, and people killed across multiple states. Yet more storms are guaranteed to come. Life is full of twists and turns, and disasters like this expose the very best and the very worst inside us.

Sometimes it takes almost losing everything to discover what matters most.

Other Books about Severe Weather

Goodreads has a list of The Best of Bad Weather Books you might want to check out, as well as Weather and Disasters Books. If you’re interested in reading more about the April 27 Super Outbreak, you can also check out What Stands in a Storm by Kim Cross.

Khristina Chess is the award-winning author of several YA novels about troubled teens turning corners. You can find her on Amazon, Goodreads, and Twitter as an active daily contributor in the #5amwritersclub.