http://www.dallasnews.com/attack_on_america/stories2/477382_prepare_22met..html Surplus stores see a flood of customers after attacks

Whether panicking or preparing, shoppers are scurrying to buy gas masks, warfare suits

09/22/2001

By ROY APPLETON / The Dallas Morning News

Business has been brisk at the Harry Hines Army Store ever since the terrorist attacks on America, but the run on gas masks Friday left Joe Walker shaking his head.

No, he didn't have any more. And no, he couldn't believe the rush.

"I thought it would slow down after the president spoke" to the nation Thursday night, said Mr. Walker, the store manager. "But it just got wild. It was panic."

Panic. Preparation. Whatever the reason, in these uncertain times Dallas-area residents are buying firearms and flooding military surplus stores in search of some peace of mind.

Fearing the worst in the budding fight with terrorism, they are stocking up on gas masks, chemical warfare suits, ready-to-eat meals and other survival gear.

"People are worried about the water supply, chemical attacks and electrical power," said Steve Porter, whose Army Navy store in Irving has sold out of masks and suits.

At the Army Navy store on McKinney Avenue in Dallas, "gas masks are out of the roof," said manager Linda Wilson. "It's almost like Y2K except more and more masks."

The store has sold more than 1,000 masks since the Sept. 11 attacks, Mrs. Wilson said, compared to 20 to 25 in a typical month. She temporarily sold out Friday morning when a Park Cities resident bought 19 masks, 19 chemical suits and water-purification tablets in a $930.54 sale.

"It's for my family," said the 47-year-old man, who didn't want his name printed because "I don't want anyone knowing where I've got my stuff."

"I'm here to guard my home to the best of my ability" – a guard that would start, he said, with his gun collection and 300,000 rounds of ammunition.

"I went to bed last night feeling pretty patriotic, but the response today put me over the edge," he said of Afghanistan's ruling clerics' call for a holy war if the United States attacks their country or attempts to seize Osama bin Laden.

Paul McCrea left the McKinney Avenue store empty-handed. After seeing a television report on war-worried shoppers, he came looking for masks and suits for himself and his wife. "I decided maybe I should go on and get them," Mr. McCrea said. "I'm wondering if I'm overreacting."

Indeed, he and others are, said Mike Connerly, standing outside the Harry Hines Army Store.

"It's blown out of proportion," he said of the war fears. "Everybody wants to be afraid of something," said Mr. Connerly, who is re-enlisting in the Seagoville-based Army 145th Medical Logistics Battalion because of the attacks.

The Cedar Creek Lake resident had come to buy a military belt, cap and collar insignia, and with a confident smile said he is ready to leave his wife and two children behind if necessary.

The rush for protective gear, said Mr. Connerly, 30, "tells me they have no faith in us." Should they? "Everything's going to be fine."

If gas masks could be found Friday, they were selling at prices starting at $19.99. They were available on eBay, the online auction site, for $39.95 each. North Texas Army Navy in Garland bundled masks and chemical suits for $49.99 or $69.99.

Most masks were made in Germany for the Israeli government's citizen defense program, said storeowners and managers, who disagreed about their effectiveness. The rubber masks use a screw-on replaceable filter, and "it says here they are designed to protect against all known chemical and biological agents," said Mrs. Wilson, reading an information sheet.

"It says you can get five to eight hours with one filter, but sometimes no more than 10 minutes," she said. "The sad part is, we don't have any replacement filters."

The Israeli-issue masks "are not going to save anyone," said Mr. Walker at the Harry Hines Army Store. "I try to tell people, but if it makes them feel better, I say, 'Go ahead and buy it.' ... The only way you can get one that works is to join the Army."

Mr. Walker said the search for gear hasn't let up since the morning of Sept. 11.

"Before I could get in here and turn on the TV, they were calling for gas masks," he said.

"It's mostly women," he said of the buyers, who have depleted his stock. "And some of them cry on the telephone."

A similar Y2K-style rush for food and water hasn't occurred, local grocery managers say. But firearms are another story.

Some area gun shops say the terror attacks have had a minimal impact on sales, but others say they are helping arm skittish residents.

At TargetMaster in Garland, gun sales tripled the day of the attacks and are up about 25 percent, said owner Tom Mannewitz. The number of firearms students has increased 50 percent, he said.

"We're seeing more rifle sales, and we're talking military-style rifles," said Jim Redding, a TargetMaster clerk.

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2001

Answers

"It's for my family," said the 47-year-old man, who didn't want his name printed because "I don't want anyone knowing where I've got my stuff." "I'm here to guard my home to the best of my ability" – a guard that would start, he said, with his gun collection and 300,000 rounds of ammunition

SURE....TO HELL WITH EVERYONE ELSE. TYPICAL "PREPARER/SURVIVALIST".
WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2001

Another batch:
Preppers in NYC/DC http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/opinion/26DOWD.html?todaysheadlines September 26, 2001 LIBERTIES From Botox to Botulism By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON It was always a delusional vanity, this fixation boomers had about controlling their environment. They thought they could make life safe and healthy and fend off death and aging. They would banish germs with anti-fungal toothbrushes, hand- sanitizing lotions, organic food, bottled water and echinacea. They would overcome flab with diet and exercise, wrinkles with collagen and Botox, sagging skin with surgery, impotence with Viagra, mood swings with anti-depressants, myopia with laser surgery, decay with human growth hormone, disease with stem cell research and bio- engineering. Anti-aging and anti-bacterial products flourished, from "age-defying" pantyhose to anti-bacterial ballpoint pens, sneakers and calculators. The generation that came of age with psychedelic frolicking became ludicrously obsessed with creating a pure, risk-free atmosphere. Even when microbiologists warned that the avid pursuit of germless homes was endangering the long- term health of children by contributing to the threat of antibiotic-resistant microbes, the anti- bacterial ads kept coming, depicting kitchens and bathrooms as dangerous places. After all these finicky years of fighting everyday germs and inevitable mortality with fancy products, Americans are now confronted with the specter of terrorists in crop dusters and hazardous-waste trucks spreading really terrifying, deadly toxins like plague, smallpox, blister agents, nerve gas and botulism. Women I know in New York and Washington debate whether to order Israeli vs. Marine Corps gas masks, and half-hour lightweight gas masks vs. $400 eight-hour gas masks, baby gas masks and pet gas masks, with the same meticulous attention they gave to ordering no- foam-no-fat-no- whip lattes in more innocent days. They share information on which pharmacies still have Cipro, Zithromax and Doxycycline, all antibiotics that can be used for anthrax, the way they once traded tips on designer shoe bargains. They talk more now about real botulism than its trendy cosmetic derivative Botox. They are toting around flats and sneakers in case they have to run, and stocking up on canned tuna, salmon and oysters, batteries and bottled water. "People are carrying survival packs to fine restaurants," said Patricia Wexler, a Manhattan dermatologist who has been prescribing antibiotics and sleeping pills for her jittery patients. "Women are taking their little black Prada techno-nylon bags and slipping in gas masks for the couple, Cipro, a flashlight, a silicone gel tube — you shmear the silicone on your skin so hopefully it doesn't absorb the spores as fast. It's truly scary. We worry about crop dusters over Midtown. It would be so easy to contaminate the reservoir." My friend Sally Quinn, a Washington writer, has been trying to order gas masks for her family for several days, only to find sold-out stores, with new orders not expected until late October. "We had such a lapse of imagination before this happened," she said, "that now we have an overstimulation of imagination." Judy Miller, a Times reporter who is one of the authors of the surprise new best seller "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War," said she had been deluged with calls from people asking how they can protect themselves. "It's the ultimate freakout," she said. "I have to tell them that they cannot do a lot as individuals, that it won't work to take Cipro every time they get the sniffles. This narcissistic, us-me culture is slowly starting to understand that they will have to act as a collective on public health to get the vaccines and trained nurses. "The government doesn't have a clue about how to get the terrorism situation under control. We can't take anything on faith anymore." Osama bin Laden, Ms. Miller says, has been experimenting with lethal toxins, and satellites have picked up pictures of little dead animals around his camp. "Bunnies, dogs," she murmured. "This guy is relentless." Ms. Miller agreed there were many scenarios that would "cause you trouble sleeping," including Muslim martyrs willing to be infected with smallpox or Marburg, a cousin of Ebola, who could then walk around our malls and cause an epidemic. Other experts say the chances of bioterrorism attacks are small. Don't try telling that to the Perrier-and-Purell generation.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2001