It took just a few hours for the oil from the Exxon Valdez to get to Chenega Bay, a small Alaskan village with just forty-eight people. And this wasn't the first disaster in their lives.
In 1964 there was a terrible earthquake in Alaska, and two very big waves destroyed the village and killed twenty-three people. After eighteen years the people of Chenega Bay came together and built a new village. That was in 1982. Just seven years later came the day that people in Chenega Bay call 'the day the water died.
Before the Exxon Valdez disaster people in Chenega Bay got a lot of their food from the sea. Now there is less food and some of it is less safe. A lot of people come to visit this part of Alaska now. They bring money, but they bring noise and rubbish, too. Not everybody is happy about that.
Some people left the village to go and work in Valdez, and some people used the money that the Exxon company paid them after the disaster to move away from Chenega Bay. But a number of people have stayed, and they are teaching their children to know about and protect their environment.
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