I’m sorry but you are confusing situations in a poor way. I was in NYC the last time there was a blackout. Pretty orderly and low key.
If there is a nuclear bomb or dirty bomb, every single person will feel at risk, not just those in the vicinity of two buildings in one neighborhood.
That will change the psychology of people walking over the 59th St. Bridge and everyone else for that matter.
I was at work in Manhattan on 9/11 and during the blackout.
The only person in this conversation who is confused is you.
If there is a nuclear bomb or dirty bomb, every single person will feel at risk, not just those in the vicinity of two buildings in one neighborhood.
This underlines your ignorance. Describing the WTC as "two buildings in one neighborhood" is like describing the Grand Canyon as a "crack in the ground."
No one in NYC knew on 9/11 that the attacks were going to end with the fall of the towers.
As I and tens of thousands of other New Yorkers walked across the 59th Street Bridge people were worried that the planes might have contained poisons or radioactive material - that the ash and dust that coated them might kill them. They were worried that another plane might hit the Empire State Building, or the Chrysler Building or the Citicorp building or any one of the bridges that Manhattanites were fleeing the city over. There were rumors that a bomb had exploded in the Midtown Tunnel or the Lincoln Tunnel.
No one on that day knew if they would be safe or what was coming next - if you think that every single person in NYC did not feel at risk on 9/11 you're out of your mind.
Government officials are never going to make a guarantee that there will be no more attacks - it is much more in their interest to warn people, that way if anything happens they look like prophets and if nothing happens they look like heroes.
The author of this article has no special knowledge that everyone else does not have access to - we all know what we are up against. Some will cry about it like little girls and the rest of us will man up and deal with it.