One of the bigger accomplishments I have on my resume was the coauthorship of a disaster plan for 50 group homes in Northeast Wisconsin. This was done in the second half of 1999, to prepare for Y2K.

After the committee was formed, we asked a representative from the Red Cross to speak to our group to help us to come up with ideas needed for our plan. The lady was more than helpful; in fact, she said, she was glad to see the attention Y2K focused on disaster preparedness, as usually they couldn't get organizations such as ours to listen to them.

We realized in very short order that our plans needed to not be Y2K preparedness plans, but rather, disaster plans. And that they needed to be updated annually. We further realized that each of our residents had unique needs, being developmentally disabled, and that a traumatic incident could be made less traumatic by individualozing the plans to fit each resident, and including them in their plans of care (One of the residents in the group home I managed had to have ketchup on EVERYTHING he ate; our evactuation kit, then, included a bottle of ketchup). All of our necessary items for a planned evacuation were kept in an evacuation kit in a designated location within the home; a smaller kit of essentials and a spare change of clothes and toiletries for everyone was kept in the group home van.

In short, we were prepared. Now, a hurricane has never made it up to Northeast Wisconsin, mind you, but tornadoes and flooding, as well as the occasional blizzard, were an ever present threat.

And we DID get to put our disaster preparedness to the test when a severe thunderstorm took out power throughout the city for up to three days in 2001. It was only because we were prepared for such a contingency that we saw our way through it without incident.

As I see the stories related to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, I am inclined to reflect back on my own experiences. Had every individual and business had a disaster plan in place and acted according to the disaster plan, there would have been no need for Mayor Nagin's histrionics. There would have been no need for a rescue effort as large and cumbersome as the one mounted. And, more importantly, countless individuals in countless nursing homes and group homes would have been alive.

Displaced, but alive.

The fact is, Y2K provided a terrific wakeup for many groups as to disaster preparedness. The sad truth is, too many didn't take advantage of the opportunities it offered. So when we are inclined to point fingers at individuals who failed in the Katrina disaster, the fingers should point to the individual organizations who failed to heed advice that was given more than 6 years prior to the disaster. And our fingers should point AWAY from the government.