DAY TWENTY THREE:Oct. 3:
The irony has been noted: the whole city is fixated on the threat of biological weapons, I am writing on the subject every day, my office is littered with government documents and science papers about deliberately released microbes and....I'm sick. WHAM! Mega-hit, viral revenge, all out assault. It has also been duly noted that my symptoms are "flu-like", as in the typical syndrome of the first 24 hours of anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, plague and the rest of the all star hit parade of likely bioweapons.
This morning in the Senate the Bush Administration's preparedness, or lack thereof, was taken to task by august politicians from both parties. Sen. Byrd looked HHS Sec. Tommy Thompson in the eyes and said, "I don't believe it". This, in response to Thompson's new mantra, "we are ready, no problem." Newsweek's latest issue has a poll indicating that most Americans share the Senate's skepticism. I fear that emergency rooms nationwide will be packed this year as flu sweeps the country and half its victims think they are suffering from plague.
The Ground Zero sarcophagus is finally yielding some bodies -- 19 today. They are almost all rescue workers who died when the second tower collapsed. Their bodies thus survived, relatively intact, because they were on the periphery. The City moved an inch closer to acknowledging the dismal prospects of body retrieval for more than 5,000 others by issueing wooden urns, filled with random samples of debris to the families.
Meanwhile, people I have always considered rock-solid New Yorkers are talking about leaving the Big Apple, heading for smaller, quieter, "safer" places, wherever they may be. For those who live close to Ground Zero it's the pain and difficulty of living among soldiers, sirens, smoke and construction/deconstruction noise that is wearing them down. It's more than understandable. Indeed, it's hard to fathom what sorts of rent reductions or mortgage deals could lure families freshly into Battery Park, TriBeCa or the financial district right now. It's easy to imagine the area becoming a temporary ghost town filled with real estate pariahs. But most of the folks who tell me they want to leave live far from the grim daily reminders, and are moved to consider abandoning Gotham because they just can't tolerate the sadness, fear and emerging economics.
I find that I am picking up Wallace's Pulitzer Prize winning GOTHAM frequently, randomly selecting passages about New Yorks travails of the past. It gives me hope and pride in this city. Few places in this hemisphere have faced the hardships, riots, depressions and fragmentations that New York has weathered, each time emerging a better, stronger, livelier place. I can't imagine leaving New York. I can't imagine ever calling any place else in the world "home".
My missive must be brief, as the microbes are playing havoc with my brain.
Be well. Be safe. Stand defiant.
Laurie Garrett
