Katrina a clue

The government's response during Hurricane Katrina should be a clue, she says, that we cannot count on government assistance in the face of a large natural or man-made disaster. If we have a huge earthquake along the Wasatch Fault, FEMA cannot be counted on to provide shelter and food, she says. If an earthquake happens in the middle of a frigid January, she asks, how will your family even stay warm?

The odd thing is that Packer is not a big worrier. When she gets on an airplane, for example, she's asleep before the plane even takes off. Why worry about something you have no control over, she says. "There's nothing I can do to keep it in the air."

She reserves her energy for the things she can do something about.

To spend a few hours with Packer is to come away determined to be prepared, too — and then, afterward, to realize you'll probably never get around to it. Besides, if you make your family build an alcohol stove out of a paint can and toilet paper, and you outfit everyone in arctic-ready foam-insulated clothes, won't people think you're weird?

"They've looked at me that way for a long time," laughs Packer. "Since I was 8. You develop a thick skin."

Here's what she tells people who say it's silly to prepare for long shots — for fallout and EMP and biological warfare and earthquakes that jar the Wasatch Front in the middle of winter: "You have to be right every day. I only have to be right once."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com