DENVER – Inside the Beltway, there are missile launchers on the Mall and empty shelves at stores selling duct tape and bottled water. But here in the heartland, attitudes toward the government’s latest terrorism alert tend to be closer to the views of Keith in Littleton, who called a talk show on Denver’s KHOW radio station.
“I don’t think I’m going to rush out and buy duct tape,” Keith told KHOW host Scott Redmond. “But if I had some, I’d use it to seal up the mouths of those jerks in Washington who are trying to scare everybody.”
Although the government’s new warnings were addressed to the nation as a whole, reaction outside the northeast corridor has been muted, with many Americans expressing less worry than the jittery residents of Washington and New York. That’s reminiscent of the sharp difference in mood right after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when East Coast residents experienced anxiety that was not felt elsewhere.
The difference stems partly from the traditional disdain beyond the Beltway for “those jerks in Washington.” In particular, the suggestion from the Department of Homeland Security that people should consider getting tape and plastic to create a “safe room” at home has prompted jokes and ridicule.
“The duct tape and the plastic sheeting has most people upset because it just doesn’t make sense,” said Gregg Knapp, a talk show host on KLIF radio in Dallas. “Most people think that there’s no way it’s going to stop a chemical attack. They think it’s really window dressing.”
“We shall fight on the beaches,” wrote Rocky Mountain News columnist Mike Littwin. “We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight on Aisle 4 of the hardware store….I guess I’ll just take my chances and pass.”
There’s also a geographic factor at work; generally, the farther people are from Ground Zero and the Pentagon, the less worried they seem to be about future attacks. While federal officials are spreading national alerts, some local authorities have taken steps to allay public fears on the home front.
“It is important to note that at this point there is no credible threat against any installation in the state,” Colorado Republican Gov. Bill Owens said after last week’s announcement on the alert level. “Experts tell us that the terrorist mind is more likely to choose highly populated, highly visible targets.”
Airports and government installations have stepped up security in response to the higher alert. Denver International Airport this week resumed random searches of all cars and buses approaching the terminal, a practice it had suspended weeks ago. But among individuals, the rush to safeguard the home and stock up on emergency supplies seems largely restricted to the East Coast.
Some Americans say they’ve had their fill of vague government warnings about a possible attack at an unknown time or place.
“You hear the word ‘alert’ so often it kind of loses the sense of emergency,” said banker Jalilah Shamsuddin, 55, over a sandwich at a downtown food court in Chicago. “This is just something we’ll have to live with.”
At a nearby table, lawyer Richard Fine, 77, agreed that the repeated alerts don’t provide any information worth acting on. “What kind of a shelter are you going to build?” he asked. “One to protect against nuclear, chemical or biological attacks? I don’t see it.”
In South Florida you would be hard pressed to prepare for a terror attack; there are no pullout sections from local papers, no hardware stores packaging preparedness kits.
At a Home Depot outlet in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, manager Carlos Rodriguez said people were starting to pay attention to the threat.
“We are seeing a little bit of a rise. It seems older people are taking it more to heart. Yesterday I saw a dozen or so people buying tape and sheeting. People are asking how to do it, how to tape it over their windows and doors. We’ve got plenty now, but if we start selling a lot more we will reorder.”
