title: Dust in the Wind  /  Real FEMA Disaster Stories
author: Robert A Winter
description: Author Robert Winter studied psychology in college and owned his own construction firm with a General B-1 license in California before spending 25 years as a contract FEMA inspector and three years as a certified building inspector. In 1989, when he set out on his first disaster, his life became a living adventure. This era of his life changed him to his core. Within one year of beginning the work and telling friends and relatives his experiences, he began to repeatedly hear, "Robert, you MUST write a book!" Because he had focused so much time and energy helping victims of the devastation and destruction that only Mother Earth herself could inflict, it is only nowmore than twenty years laterthat he actually sat down to write that book. Some people are just born to protect othersRobert Winter is one of them. Whether it's "A-list" celebrities in the midst of Los Angeles and Las Vegas crowds or "everyday people" trying to recover from the horrors and destruction of a natural disaster, "Frecks" is the man for the job. As a world karate champion, and 3rd degree balck black, he teaches rape prevention techniques to women; he has traveled the country working as a bodyguard to a single American flag that was part of one of the most famous incidents in professional baseball history. Of course, a lot of people might think Robert needs to be protected from himself instead of the other way around. He is a daredevil and confirmed adrenaline junky who happily dives for abalone amongst great white sharks, bungee jumps, waterskis and he's even spent half of a year living in Antarctica, where he went diving beneath the polar ice! He received the Antarctica Service Medal by the National Science Foundation, and the Antarctica Service Medal by Department of the Navy, for his contributions to the exploration of Antarctica. Adventurer, friend to many, protector of all he meets, Robert chose the words "Help, Hope, and Comfort" as his business motto, but they are also the words that best describe his life's work and the goals of his very first book. Today, he always has two bags packed and is always prepared to fly into a disaster zone.
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  One
  
  
  
  
  
  A CANDLE IN THE WIND
  
  
  
  
  
  A storm struck on the night Laura Shane was born, and there wasa strangeness
  about the weather that people would remember for years.
  
  
  Wednesday, January 12, 1955, was frigid, gray, and somber. At twilight thick,
  fluffy snowflakes spiraled out of the low sky, and the people of Denver
  huddled in expectation of a Rocky Mountain blizzard. By ten o'clock that
  night, a bitterly cold gale blew in from the west, howling out of the mountain
  passes and shrieking down those rugged, wooded slopes. The snowflakes grew
  smaller, until they were as fine as sand, and they sounded as abrasive as
  sand, so, when the wind blew them across the windows of Dr.
  
  
  Paul Markwell's book-lined study.
  
  
  Markwell slumped in the chair behind his desk, drinking Scotch to keep warm.
  The persistent chill that troubled him was not caused by a winter draft but by
  