Irene Shows Post 9/11 RI Is Prepared
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Tropical Storm Irene huffed and puffed her way through New England on Sunday leaving many of us without power, our favorite tree lying horizontally in our or our neighbor’s yard, and in my case a few of my porch windows doing their best impersonation of fertilizer strewn about my lawn in a million pieces. Whatever your story is, what I find encouraging is that it seems as if we’ve learned a few things about emergency response and preparation.
September 11 caught the US off-guard
As we draw closer to the ten year anniversary of 9/11, I’m reminded of a time when we were carefree and thought we were invincible. September 11, 2001 I turned 24 and we were sixty years removed from the previous titleholder of “day of infamy”. Maybe some of our older Rhode Islanders can correct me here, but I don’t believe the country was prepared for what occurred that day.
I grew up reading about great historical battles, struggles for civil rights, and the like without having to deal with much from a contemporary perspective. I think many folks like me, the Gen X’ers, fell into this category never having faced a world war nor been forced to participate in a war halfway across the world. Even former Vietnam vets has stories from their parents and grandparents about the fragile nature of power and the costs our nation bore to protect its freedom.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTYet, on that late summer morning in 2001, we were not prepared for what was about to happen.
The Iraq War, chemical weapons scare, and 9/11 changed our mentality
We’ve changed since then. I don’t believe we think of ourselves as invincible or more importantly, untouchable, anymore. For years we watched terrorism on tv a world away and thought it would never affect us here. Even after the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995, I remember thinking, “well that was just some crazy nutjob, it’s not as if a ‘real’ terrorist act could happen here.”
After 9/11 we went on hyper alert. George Bush who I voted for in 2000 because I believed he wouldn’t entangle our military overseas pushed hard for a war with Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction. I sat there wondering if the free America I had grown up in was gone forever. We were going to war based on the belief we thought Saddam Hussein had WMDs; in essence, after 9/11 we were going to strike first rather than allow another incident. When we went to war with Iraq, the nation wasn’t as divided as we believed Bush, Powell, & Rumsfeld to do what they collectively didn’t do on 9/11 – protect Americans.
And so we went to war.
Eight years and thousands of American lives later, was it really worth it? Doesn’t seem like it, in my opinion. Do you feel safer today than you did on September 12, 2001? Do you feel with the downfall of Hussein and more recently Osama bin Laden, that we can return to the America of September 10, 2001?
No, I don’t think so. As much as September 11 changed us our response has altered our mentality for the rest of our lives. We look at Arab Americans differently and people who carry the Koran are the next terrorist. I was at Universal Studios in Hollywood recently and there was an Arab family dressed in traditional garb waiting in line and if looks could kill that family would died multiple times over.
We can’t help it – we lost too much that day. It still doesn’t make it right.
But there is an up side
Still, this Tropical Storm, although a natural disaster and something we had days to prepare for, encourages me about our ability to react to unexpected events far better than we did pre-9/11. I was one of the fortunate ones who didn’t lose power and all over Facebook I read different mayors and government officials updating the masses. The media covered the storm from beginning to end providing updates and desperately cautioning people to stay indoors.
It seems as if we no longer scoff at danger like we once did be it natural or otherwise. We look out at the world and understand that there are people who’d rather see us dead than alive. It’s a sobering thought, but one which have come to terms with.
And so, I’ve got a little more faith today that we would be more prepared for another 9/11 event than I did the day after 9/11. Yes, we’ve become a little more paranoid in process, but the American spirit is one of freedom and liberty. We’ve not always lived our ideals perfectly but if 9/11 taught us anything it’s that we must stay vigilant and be prepared for anything – even 70 mph winds on a Sunday morning in August.
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