The first text came from my former student in the early hours of July 15, 2018: “The Shōnai River is already at my doorstep.” It was 3:42 a.m.; the official evacuation order for Na

Most people know Pompeii as a city frozen in time—a Roman settlement buried under ash and pumice when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. The popular imagination pictures citizens cau