Iarrived at the airport in Atlanta jet-lagged and sleep deprived after a long flight from Paris. I was living in Rhode Island at the time and had to catch a connecting flight home. During the layover, I called my parents from a pay phone. Through the large glass window, I could see an ominous-looking thunderstorm to the west, where they lived.

“I can’t talk but a minute,” my dad said. “There’s a heavy storm blowing up. We’ll need to unplug the phones.”

By the time we boarded, that same thunderstorm was moving into Atlanta. I was already a nervous flier, and this wasn’t helping matters. I’m one of those people who stopped swimming in the ocean after Jaws , and when it came to plane crashes, I’d probably seen one too many disaster movies. I buckled into my seat, staring with trepidation

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