From Deseret News archives:
Risk confidence By thinking the unthinkable, preparedness expert is ready for emergency
These are not idle musings. Packer is executive director of The American Civil Defense Association, whose headquarters were relocated to Utah from Florida last summer. To sit down with her for a couple of hours is to be forced not only to acknowledge that no, you yourself don't yet have a 72-hour kit, but also to think about the most unthinkable catastrophes and their grim ramifications for which even a 72-hour kit won't be enough.
Some people are risk-averse and some people are risk-takers, but Packer is something else: risk-confident.
On an impossibly beautiful winter day, with the sun glinting off the snow in the pastures outside her house in Wasatch County, she explains her philosophy. "Deep inside, I do think something bad is going to happen." Then she explains herself: "I consider myself an optimist." Then she laughs, and adds: "I'm optimistic that something bad is going to happen and that I can survive it."
No hope of survival?
You don't think any of this is going to happen? That's not the point. Packer is all about could.
Let's say she's driving down Parleys Canyon and all of a sudden the radio station she's listening to goes off the air and her car stalls and she looks around and all the other cars on the road are stopped too. Packer has pictured this scenario many times.
This will be a signal that the country has been the victim of an electromagnetic pulse attack. EMP the intense electrical pulse produced when even a small nuclear bomb is detonated at high altitudes is Packer's biggest worry. In less than a second, the pulse can melt the wires of every piece of solid-state electronics, and the entire electrical system, in the United States.
Likelihood is increasing
Recent comments
I cannot agree with Ms. Packer more. The acuality of an EMP attack's...
P.H. Lowrie | Feb. 26, 2008 at 2:29 p.m.
- Cougars beat Utes in overtime 1:11 a.m.
- UVU beats SUU; USU wins big 12:57 a.m.
- BYU spikers end season with a loss 12:55 a.m.
- Iverson may be headed to 76ers 12:34 a.m.
- Credit Coug defense for win 12:33 a.m.
- Aggies blow away T-birds 12:32 a.m.
- Mo steals show in Cavaliers' victory 12:31 a.m.
- Editorial: Facilitate Big Brother? 12:22 a.m.
- Mom befriends wife of PTSD vet 12:21 a.m.
- Political clash over U.S. debt 12:21 a.m.
- Cave to be sealed with body inside
- Predicting the unpredictable: BYU wins
- Hall mouths off about hate of Utah
- Vegas, Poinsettia bowls or bust
- BYU football: 5 keys to victory
- Glover gives Utes last-second upset
- Cougars turn back Wildcats'
- Cougars beat Utes in overtime
- Man trapped in Nutty Putty cave dies
- BYU is champion of the state
- Cougars beat Utes in overtime
396 - Hall mouths off about hate of Utah
150 - Thunder rolls by Jazz
136 - Cave to be sealed with body inside
115 - Man trapped in Nutty Putty cave dies
115 - Editorial: Poor welcome for Palin
113 - Rivalry Week is highly profane
88 - Hall's legacy measured today
75 - Y. focused on 10-win season
73 - Letters: C02 causes warming
70
I wanted to tell them not to go. I dropped subtle hints. "My money is on...
When I was a kid, I worshipped my grandpa. He was undoubtedly my hero....
watch out for next year for sure, the negatives are just closet (and...
And something else, I generally follow players from the state schools when...
I could care less that Max Hall said what he did. The feeling is mutual BYU...
Dear Max, probably could have done without that comment. Probably would've...
As a Utah fan, let me first say congratulations to Max Hall, the Cougars, and...
Geno's and Pat's are good.. but, they are mostly for tourists, the real...
(You even got a middle initial... how's that for 'ya Max) It's nice to see...
Even today, I still cannot get enough of this movie or Charles Gitonga Maina....
...disappointed with Max Hall's comments that he hates everything about UofU....
Over the last few days I read comments of people complaining about tasteless...



