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Getting Our Ducts in a Row
Friday February 14, 2003
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Every conversation in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, for the fourth time in 17 months, starts with a discussion of personal safety.
After the September 11th attacks, the Anthrax scare, during the sniper period last summer, and now under an Orange Alert, the people of this region are very closely focused on what to do and how to do it.
The other day on the Don Imus radio program, former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani said you had to think about this Orange Alert business like an airplane flight. Once you've made the threshold decision to get on the plane, you're pretty much off the hook. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.
Living in the Washington, DC or New York City area presents a similar condition: Once you've made the threshold decision to live in one of those two areas, you've accepted whatever risks are associated with that decision and you should just relax and enjoy.
Except that if you actually live here, it is far from a metaphysical issue:
On the George Washington Parkway each morning, a police car - lights flashing - sits on the overpass to Reagan National Airport.
Office building managers all over town are holding meetings on evacuation procedures.
People are discussing, without irony, the best routes to get out of town - even though the roads in and out of Washington are jammed for two and three days around every major holiday so it is not clear how about four million people would be able to get out of town within a few hours of each other.
The whole notion of buying duct tape and plastic to seal windows like a see-through Christo exhibit lasted only long enough for people to realize it was a Catch-22: Most houses have a lot of windows and if even one of them were not properly sealed then whatever they were trying to keep out would seep in and kill them; but if all the windows WERE properly sealed, they would die from asphyxiation.
While we haven't stocked up on canned foods we did check the water supply and I did buy four light bulbs which was not driven by an Orange Alert, but rather by the fact that the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices had pirated a bulb from the den for use in the kitchen.
My favorite cousin, who lives in New York City, polled the people on the floor of her office when I told her what I wanted to know. She discovered that most people - especially those who work on documentaries were resigned, like being on an airplane, to whatever the fates have in store. "There is a certain fatalism following 9/11," she said, "which is irreconcilable. You're in the wrong place or you're not." That's really the way she talks which is only one of the reasons she's my favorite.
However, she said that in her survey, people down the hall - in administration - were much more likely to be very concerned, even frightened.
She then put me on a conference call with her friend Amy who is eight months pregnant. Amy's mom had called her yesterday morning begging her leave the City and come home to Pennsylvania.
Amy said she was staying in New York but admitted she has not been on a subway since the national alert level went up to Orange on Friday.
I think we should all follow that which will henceforth be known as "The Rule of Amy:"
Don't panic. Don't be foolish. Have great kids.
And, in honor of Valentine's Day, follow your heart.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A Mullfoto taken at Reagan National Airport, a catchy caption which scares the devil out of me, and the definition of "Catch-22."
--END --
Copyright © 2003 Richard A. Galen
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