A Pilgrim’s Digression

One of my very first blog posts, back on March 26, 2003, was about being issued a hood and respirator intended to protect us government employees against biological and chemical attack. I called them “gas masks,” but they were actually called “escape hoods” because they were meant to provide one hour of clean air, just enough to escape from the immediate area of a biological or chemical attack.

At the time, you’ll recall, the invasion of Iraq was in full swing. It was a tense period of time. Most people felt that the war was the primary reason we were given these hoods. Some speculated that the government had knowledge of Iraqi terrorist agents in America who were preparing a WMD attack in Washington.

We were supposed to keep our hoods beside our desk, along with a small pack of emergency supplies–flashlight, batteries, foil packets of water–that were also issued to us by the government. I kept mine there for several months, but eventually it migrated into a desk drawer, and finally it ended up gathering dust in a cabinet when I moved to my new office in 2004.

I hadn’t even looked at it or given it a thought in probably two years. Then last week, we were given a date on which to come to a certain room in the building where we could turn in our hoods and receive a new model. I picked mine up today.

I’m not sure the model has been improved much. Back in 2003, people joked that it looked like a gallon-size ziploc bag, and some wit remarked that if worst came to worse, one could put the bag over one’s head, cinch it tight, and suffocate. Perhaps that was the intention all along.

The current model is larger, with a bulkier respirator. Also, back in 2003 we had to attend a mandatory, hour-long training session in which we were allowed to try on the hood and practice donning it as quickly as possible.

Today, I had to watch a 30 second video without audio, in which a young woman put the mask on in a continuous loop. The women passing out the hoods seemed bored, even a little cranky, as they gave us directions about signing for our hood and picking it up off the table.

Afterwards, I stood in front of a large, plasma TV with several other people and watched the loop of the woman putting on her hood. She is also pictured in the instruction book for the hood, looking rather like Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette.

“It looks like she isn’t even cinching it tight,” someone said.

“It’s just sitting there loose on her shoulders.”

“Maybe the point is to concentrate the chemicals inside the hood, so that you can die quicker,” someone else said.

After a few moments, we all departed back to our respective offices.

I think that historically, the age in which we live is going to be equated with the era of bomb shelters and “duck and cover” drills. Think about this a moment: how is one protected from a WMD attack by a plastic bag that covers one’s head and supplies clean air to your body for only one hour?

To me, it’s rather like giving each airplane passenger a parachute in case of an accident during flight. Sure, the parachute is great, if passengers exit the plane through the emergency doors in an orderly fashion. Do most airplane accidents happen in a way that makes parachutes a viable safety feature for passengers? No, or else airlines would distribute them.

I feel the same way about these escape hoods. I feel safer having one, but am I really any safer? Only if a terrorist attack happens on such a small scale that I can don my hood properly and easily escape the blast radius in the amount of time allotted me by my respirator. And that presumes I am not buried under rubble or otherwise incapacitated.

I recall when I first came to live and work here in Washington in August 2002, it bothered me just a little that I was effectively moving into the center of the bullseye. I thought about it, occasionally, but not obsessively. Sometimes I’d idly wonder, what if today is another day like 9/11, only worse?

I have colleagues who were in Washington on 9/11/01, and August 2002 was not far removed from that date. The one year anniversary was not even behind us, at that point. My coworkers told me their stories of what happened that day. One man told me that even as far away as Capitol Hill, he felt the earth tremble when the plane struck the Pentagon.

He said the remarkable thing was the absolute chaos that ensued. No one knew what had happened, or what was going on at that moment, or whether the Capitol should be evacuated, or where anyone would go if the Capitol was evacuated. Capitol Police officers first told everyone to stay put, then the police panicked and told them basically to run for their lives. “Out now! Get out now! There’s a plane headed for the Capitol!”

A female co-worker told me that because of the chaos and the evacuation of much of the city, public transportation was stalled. She walked home to Arlington from Capitol Hill amidst a throng of other government employees walking home, and as she crossed over the Potomac on the Theodore Roosevelt bridge, she could look south and see the smoke. She was a nervous wreck and slept little, the next few nights. She took the rest of the week off. To this day she avoids driving over that bridge, if she can help it. When she does drive over it, she compulsively glances out her window and remembers.

I have gathered up these stories, and I recall them to mind every once in awhile. Though not particularly vivid or traumatic, these stories still send chills down my back, because I know the people involved. Even now, I see them almost every day/ But when I think about my own potential death in some future terrorist incident, I don’t feel much of anything, certainly not fear.

To some extent I am resigned. I have done my best to limit my risk, while at the same time taking advantage of this great opportunity to serve my country and provide for my family. By teleworking on Mondays and taking Fridays off, so that I can drive home to southwest Virginia for the weekend, I feel like I have at least cut my risk in half, if not two thirds. However, if the terrorists strike on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday before 5:00 PM, I am probably a dead man.

Of course, cutting risk in one regard has increased risk in another: I might well die in a car accident. I see bad accidents on Interstate 81 almost every Monday and Thursday, during my drive to and from Washington.

However, at least my family is well provided for and safe, down there in rural Virginia. And that is quite a relief indeed.