Bin Laden’s spell is broken

It’s hard to remember now how anxious we were then.

When the planes hit the Twin Towers almost 10 years ago, neighborhood moms gathered in my home and, as we watched CNN in collective anguish, debated whether to go to Western Salisbury Elementary School to bring our kids home.

We didn’t know that day if the terrorist attacks were a one-time strike or the beginning of a war. With the subsequent deaths from anthrax delivered by mail to unsuspecting victims, that question would hang in the air for weeks like fallout. 

I actually talked to my husband about whether we should ask my parents to take our children to New Zealand until we knew whether anthrax was the beginning of a wave of bioterrorism here. Looking back it sounds silly, but I was trying to think of the last place Osama bin Laden or his minions might unleash weapons of mass destruction such as small pox or Ebola.

Those fears ebbed over time but never completely disappeared. So when we heard the news of bin Laden’s death Sunday night and saw the cheering crowds outside the White House, it felt like a decade-long low-grade fever had broken. 

Vicky Kistler, director of the Allentown Health Bureau, which works with emergency services on disaster preparedness drills, remembers getting calls from residents who had overdosed on 24-hour news coverage of the attacks and were nearly paralyzed by fear. 

“People become riveted somehow to that kind of tragedy and that kind of destruction,” she said. More recently, it happened to some area residents with the gas explosion in Allentown that killed five in February. 

Kistler tells them, “You’ve got to turn that television off, put the newspaper away, go for a walk, think about something going on that’s positive.”

But Kistler draws a distinction between being unnecessarily fearful and doing simple things to prepare your family for possible emergencies. Come up with a place every member of the family should try to get to if something happens and they can’t communicate by phone. Make arrangements with a neighbor you trust to take in your children temporarily if they come home from school someday and you’re not there. Write your cell phone number inside your young children’s shoes and remind them to look there if they are ever lost or can’t find you. 

New technology can be a blessing and a curse in this regard. In  speaking to Kistler, I realized that I hadn’t memorized my kids’ cell phone numbers because I have them on speed dial. What would I do in a crisis if my phone wasn’t handy? 

When you prepare kids ahead of time for emergencies, they’re less likely to panic when they happen.  “The reason that so many children don’t panic when a fire alarm rings is they are used to the fire drill,” Kistler said. “They get up, they line up and they walk out of the building.”

Since bin Laden’s death, the talk of a possible retaliatory strike by al-Qaida means Americans should expect some security delays at places like airports and be vigilant while going about their lives, she said. After all, it was street vendors who foiled the Times Square bomb plot by noticing smoke coming from a driverless SUV and  bringing it to the attention of police. 

“A big part of emergency preparedness is knowing what is familiar and accepted in your surroundings,” she said. “Very often before a fire, there’s a smell of smoke, very often before a catastrophe, there’s a sign that it’s coming. If something doesn’t seem right…if someone is saying or doing unusual things, report it to an authority.”

Those who wish to do more can take part in the upcoming “Preparedness Rodeo” on May 21 by calling the health bureau at 610-437-7577.

I know the end of bin Laden is not the end of terrorism but it still feels like a spell has been lifted. Plus, it’s cheering to think that there’s a long line of sexually frustrated suicide bombers in hell ready to beat the crap out of him for that lie about 72 virgins waiting for them in paradise.

This is what I wrote a few years after the Sept. 11 attacks: “I can't read the minds of the Osama bin Ladens of the world and, until I can, I'm pretty fatalistic. Either my family and I are going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or we aren't. No sense spending our already short time on Earth trying to live one step ahead of a madman.”

I still believe that but now there’s one less charismatic madman to worry about. Thank you Navy Seals.