The world outlook is pretty gloomy in the brochure. "Presently we think that our world is in a 'calm before the storm' and 'phony war' state," it says. "Governments position themselves for survival or altruism. Everyone goes about acting normally punctuated by periods of semi-panic…Although wars are beginning now, we hope that the slow devolution of normalcy doesn't impact us too directly and immediately."
CWO Rob Wyman
Coast Guard patrols regularly board container ships headed to the port.
CWO Rob Wyman
Speedboats, planes and helicopters are used to patrol the Ship Channel area.
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Actually, "periods of semi-panic" may not be too bad a description of life in the United States and Houston these days: There are plenty of people in town feeling a little bit sheepish about the large amount of duct tape they suddenly own.
Tonya Harrison, manager of the Lowe's near Bunker Hill and Interstate 10, says her store did indeed sell out of six cases of up to 24 rolls each in the initial days of the scare. There was no stampede at the door, but the supply went fast, she says. And it's not over yet -- "We're still selling more of it than we used to in an average week," she says.
"Ever since 9/11, you kind of carry on with your daily life, but it's always there in the back of your mind," says Carol Mills, the Poe Elementary parent told to stock up on emergency Slim Jims for her eight-year-old. "My daughter asks me all the time, 'Did they catch that bad man yet?' They think about it, these kids. It's sad that they have to deal with it."
Mills didn't join the duct tape brigade -- "If something happened, I guess I'd just grab my kid and the dogs and head to Canada," she says -- and she's not about to start building a bomb shelter.
Houston isn't too well suited for bomb shelters, being on a swamp and all. As it turns out, though, there is one semi-famous bomb shelter in town.
In the 5100 block of Jackwood in Meyerland, there's a house that does indeed have a bomb shelter. In 1955, when Soviet bombs could have landed at any moment (according to the government), the U.S. Civil Defense Department paid the family that lived there $300 to spend 72 hours in it as part of Operation Take Cover. Life magazine ran a photo spread.
That family is long gone, but the bomb shelter remains.
For a long time it was used as an extra closet, a space to hold whatever junk couldn't be stashed elsewhere. But current owner Shirley Perry didn't clear it out and seal it with plastic sheeting when the latest terror alert occurred.
By then it had been taken over by her 17-year-old grandson.
"He watches TV down there; he's got his guitar and his VCR and whatever," Perry says. "I've never been down there myself -- I have an inner-ear problem, so I don't want to try it."
No matter what frightening color the terror-alert system might reach, the 72-year-old says she has no plans to renovate it to its original purpose.
"I'm old enough that I just think whatever happens will happen," she says. "And when it does, there's nothing you can do about it."
That fatalistic attitude is likely more common than it appears. Even with duct tape selling out, even with increased port patrols, tightened security, experts worrying their way through hypotheticals, most Houstonians are thinking only sporadically of these tense times.
The thought of a terrorism attack isn't stopping anyone from going to the rodeo or the Rockets. (Bad weather and lousy shooting, instead, are doing what Osama or Saddam can't.)
Perhaps a few more people are crossing their fingers whenever they drive through Refinery Row in Pasadena, but most everyone holds their breath on that road anyway (for one reason or another).
Nevertheless, the tension that has arrived with 9/11 and fluctuating colors of terror warnings isn't about to go away anytime soon in Houston.
And Lillibridge, for one, thinks we're in a good spot, with top-notch hazardous-material teams, the Texas Medical Center and well-trained first-responders.
"Preparing for a terrorist attack used to be a backwater thing, something you'd do on the fringes, dealing with potential lunatics," he says. "What's changed is that the quality of the health and medical community in your city has become strategically important to your chances of survival in the world we live in," he says.
That's comforting. One supposes.
It won't stop the duct tape sales, or the emergency supplies of trail mix, or the liberal encampments ready for Armageddon. But that's life these days in the United States, and in Houston.
