#evacuated

Yesterday, I got a call from my daughter, telling me the school was evacuated to the football stadium due to a confirmed bomb threat. The district didn't bother to reach out until a half an hour later

The message the district sent only mentions that all the students were evacuated safely not a word about the bomb itself. Then they said school was still on for today

Call me crazy, but with the limited info they gave, I do not feel comfortable with my daughter going to school today.

The SWAT team was called in yesterday. State troopers and local cops were called in. Now they want to pretend like it wasn't a big deal without giving the parents information.

So, no, my daughter will not be in attendance today. She can do her work online and not be in any danger of getting blown up.

Laurel School District, you need to do better.

There's a storm outside, but we both wear summer clothes. None of us thought about bringing winter clothes as we packed and left. We came from different places, in different times, and different circumstances. But right now, we are just women in an impossible situation.

"That Saturday we were home. They shot at the street next to us, and we heard that. The loud noises, the screams. I told my husband 'if we survive this, we leave the moment we can.' our friends' building got a direct hit by a missile."

She has a stroller, and her eldest run around in the hall, playing with other kids. She is nine, maybe ten, and her black curls jump behind her.

"She started wetting her bed again that night. A few weeks ago, when we went to get some clothes from home she started screaming. She kept asking, making sure we don't stay there for the night. When we entered the city she stopped. She was pale, and her eyes were wide. I hand her over a bag, but she just stopped reacting. She was mute the whole time we were there, only started to speak again at the evening."

She is scared and helpless, telling me as if I could help her.

I'm scared and helpless as well - we both live in places that aren't considered refugees, but get bombarded every day. I stay with family, sharing room with a refrigerator.

I can't help her.

But I listen to her as she tell me about her fears. As she try to figure out how to tell her kid they have to go back.

I can't give her solutions, but I can listen.

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I was, though I was incredibly fortunate. 

The smallest children of the orphanage were evacuated to the country in June of 1940, the summer between my second and third years at Hogwarts. Us older children stayed behind, mainly for schooling purposes, though it was known we would join the smaller children if things got bad. Nevertheless, it was a quiet summer, in terms of any attack on London. 

I returned to Hogwarts on September 1st 1940 for my third year. The bombing of London began six days later. It lasted until May. I remained at Hogwarts for Christmas and Easter, and so missed it all. 

When I returned to London in June, the city was unrecognizable. I will never forget the destruction, the piles of rubble that were once buildings. Wools was still standing, but had been damaged. Everyone, including the older children, had been evacuated, so I did not stay long - the adult who had come up to collect me brought me down to the countryside, where I rejoined the other children and would spend the summer between my third and fourth years. I liked the country. There were opportunities to slip into the farmlands and fields and forget whom I was surrounded by, why I was there. I could climb a tree with a good book and not move for hours. There were snakes of all kinds in the stone walls and foundations of brick houses.

By the time I returned from my fourth year, the orphanage had been repaired, the children returned, and it was business as usual. There were drills, and vigilance, and a sense of unease, but no destruction that summer. 

In a way, this put me at a disadvantage. I had no idea what to expect the summer of 1944, the summer between my sixth and seventh years. It was my last summer at Wools, and the only summer I experienced air raids. I was nervous, even frightened at times, which I admit I was embarrassed about - many of the younger children had learned by then to stoically seek shelter, and I, at seventeen, felt a bit more shaken than they. 

I was not concerned with the threat of fire, or becoming trapped in rubble, or anything of that sort. I had my wand on me, I was of age, and was confident I could maneuver myself out of any unfortunate situation. I was more afraid of being killed or incapacitated before being able to do anything about it. This utter sense of powerlessness - that is what I still remember. The waiting. The cool facade put on by myself and the handful of other teenagers unfortunate enough to still be stuck at Wools. At seventeen, I fancied myself an adult, and so I wanted to approach the war like an adult would. But now, looking back, I see that despite my wand, my talent, the fact that I had already killed my father - I was still very much a child. 

I do still dream about that summer. 

As for my opinions on Germans - I hated them the summer I was in the countryside. I hated them for blowing up London, for causing this disruption, for all the needless destruction. At seventeen, I had progressed to hating both sides, their conflicts, their need to create increasingly absurd inventions to blow up more and more of one another. I remember thinking how much of London would still be standing if none of this had happened, if muggles could somehow be stopped.