Emergency Preparedness. I have been thinking a lot about that topic since Hurricane Katrina. In one sense when something so catastrophic happens you really can’t have all the bases covered. But what if every family had an emergency plan? What if the local government had an emergency plan?

I see pictures of young children bedraggled and crying. That makes my heart ache because that was my story sixty years ago. I was born in Poland, but we were ethnic Germans who had been living in Poland for many generations. When Hitler was losing WWII it was necessary for us to flee because of our ethnicity. Not all ethnic German people fled. Many, really too many, held the notion that this was the land of their birth, their parents and grandparents were also born here, why should they flee. They had always gotten along well the Polish people. Why should things be different now? I have an uncle who held that notion. He paid dearly for his decision to stay. He was beaten to an inch of his life, and then made a slave.

I’m glad my parents saw danger coming and made preparations to get out before the storm hit. The storm was the Russians crossing the Vistula River in pursuit of the fleeing Nazi’s. Their hatred for anything and anyone of German ancestry was merciless. We would surely have been killed or worse if we had stayed.

I clearly remember the day we left. There was a last minute bread baking. We baked about twelve loaves of rich, brown, whole wheat bread. Papa and Mom packed the wagon with foodstuff, bedding and other essential items before heading west. We got out alive.

I recently read a story of a woman who had a premonition that there was something different about this approaching hurricane. The air felt all-wrong she said. Even though they were dirt poor, they packed themselves into their car and headed west two days before the hurricane hit. They are in Tucson now. What a wise woman! She reminds me of what my parents did.

On the Homeland Security website they talk about emergency preparedness. Have a get-go bag ready they say. Have enough food and water stocked up to be able to last out a week or so before a rescue. We are beginning to do just that. We are beginning to put together a family emergency plan.

Maybe Katrina is teaching us all a lesson.