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Wake up, Americans, and prepare for terrorism
Wed Feb 4, 7:44 AM ET Add Op/Ed - USATODAY.com to My Yahoo!

By John D. Solomon

One recent morning, I was in line in a crowded men's room at the Castle Clinton National Monument near the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. An Israeli tourist, spotting a leather briefcase standing seemingly unattended against a wall, asked loudly whether it belonged to anyone. When no one answered, he yelled, "Everyone out! Everyone out!" A few people left, but most just went about their business. A few seconds later, a man returned to claim the briefcase he innocently had left behind.

Shaking his head, the Israeli said, "Aren't people here taking terrorism seriously yet?"

It's a fair and generally overlooked question - one that becomes even more pressing as poison shuts down U.S. Senate office buildings and the Department of Homeland Security grounds flights, including one headed to Houston, the Super Bowl host city.

Yet, despite the alarms and Homeland Security's year-old civil-defense campaign, Ready.Gov, few Americans are prepared against terrorism. A survey by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that while 75% of the public expects more terrorist attacks soon, less than 25% has made any basic emergency preparations.

Just do it

Americans have been receiving confusing, tentative and incomplete messages from their government. For instance, the introduction of Ready.Gov's Web site ominously warns that the possibility of a biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological terrorist attack is "very real." But in the department's public service announcements, Secretary Tom Ridge soft-pedals action: "To ultimately be the victor in the war against terrorism, we need all Americans to be engaged, down to the point where we ask mothers and fathers to think about doing some simple things at home to protect themselves and protect their children."

The government should be telling citizens to act, not asking them to "think" about it. Civil defense is being sold as a choice, not a duty - as the anemic compliance numbers reflect.

But the problem goes beyond tone. The government isn't even clear about what it wants the citizenry to do. Strikingly, President Bush (news - web sites) never has addressed Americans on personal civil preparedness in a major speech. The only action that Ready.Gov definitively recommends is storing the same basic supplies one would keep in case of any natural disaster, such as a flood. It does not instruct citizens to do anything special to prepare for terrorism. The vast majority of its ideas are couched in qualifiers such as "think about" or "consider."

Prepared vs. frightened

Granted, the task is hard. Authorities don't want to scare people unnecessarily. But leaders must prepare the public for a variety of terror possibilities unmatched in human history. They also must deal with Americans' pre-disposed skepticism about "civil defense," which conjures up old images of kids hiding under desks to protect against nuclear bombs.

Experts say keeping people in the dark only increases their nervousness. A recent Carnegie Mellon University study found that nearly 80% of the public believes authorities should "provide Americans with honest, accurate information about the situation, even if the information worries people."

Maybe the government is beginning to agree. At Ridge's request, former media executive Steven Brill recently created the America Prepared Campaign, an effort to get the private sector to help the government improve preparedness. Planned activities include ads, brochures, TV specials and an affordable home-safety kit.

Ridge's implicit acknowledgement that the administration needs assistance is a good first step. But the subject still requires far more attention and clarity from government leaders. And all Americans also need to be held accountable for treating terrorism preparedness as one of their basic civic responsibilities.

To answer the Israeli man's question: No, Americans probably don't need to be as serious about terrorism preparedness as his countrymen; so far, lost briefcases here still are being claimed by their owners. But that doesn't mean that when it comes to civil-defense readiness, Americans shouldn't be moving closer in that direction.

John D. Solomon is a New York-based journalist.