By Victor Greto
Terrorism, like politics, is local.
The astonishingly sudden and profound psychological ripple effects from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., reached South Florida almost as swiftly as the shock waves that rumbled through lower Manhattan as the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
More than two weeks after the attack, those effects are starting to wane, people say, but their ears still ring with the possibility of another attack, and things — everyday things — will never be the same.
People are hesitant to fly. Some fatalistically await word that their friends or relatives are among the more than 5,000 who are presumed dead.
Others know no one in New York but have repeatedly watched images of the collapsing towers with a sense of helplessness and dread.
For some, that dread has turned into a fear of losing their jobs or watching their retirement funds drain away as the stock market dives. There are important reasons for the quickness of that ripple effect.
“Not only did [the terrorists] adopt our technology,” says social psychologist Mark Cavanaugh, referring to the hijacked jet airliners, “but they adopted the way ideas flow in our society, that they’re open and spread rather quickly.”
Mary Meckling, an American Airlines flight attendant, lives in Coconut Creek but was based out of Boston at the beginning of her 14-year career. She knew one of the pilots, John Ogonowski, and two of the flight attendants, Kathleen Nicosia and Betty Ong, who were killed on Flight 11, the plane that smashed into the north tower at 8:45 a.m.
Symbolism
When hijackers used planes labeled “American Airlines” and “United Airlines,” and rammed them into the heart of America’s financial district, she says, they knew what they had symbolically done.
And they also probably knew those images would be broadcast throughout the country and the world, turning America’s hunger for news and information on itself.
Some think the second attack on the tower may have been timed to make sure it was on live TV.
In the weeks since the attack, the images of the planes crashing into the towers have decreased, but pictures of rescuers sifting through rubble, laminated by a crescendo of calls for military retaliation and bad economic news, have kept it a stressful part of everyday life.
“I’m anxious about waiting for us to take action,” says Roxanne Lipp, a legal secretary in Dania Beach. “I don’t know what that’s going to be.
“I would have expected if there was a terrorist attack it would be in New York City. But I never would have expected anything on that scale.”
For Amy Biederman, a Pembroke Pines mother of three, “It’s always on my mind.”
Even though her anxious feelings are beginning to wane, she can’t take her eyes off CNN.
“I’m nervous,” she says. “I’m just wondering what’s going to happen. I’m nervous when I hear things like biochemical weapons, hearing about the crop dusters — just the fact that they were here, that anything can happen at any time.”
And that may be the greatest success of the attack.
“The greatest amount of stress is living in a situation where you have no control in your environment,” Cavanaugh says.
The handful of terrorists who profoundly changed the American psyche in less than two hours are dead. But the threat is not.
“It’s the imagined presence of others that is so devastating in this case,” Cavanaugh says. “You’re seeing the effects of this in the culture. I’ve never seen it on such a scale.”
Neither has George Thompson of Plantation, a retired firefighter and Vietnam veteran.
“I really don’t know how to describe how I feel,” he says. “I have a hard time watching TV. I get very emotional. I’ve avoided watching TV to some extent. When they play the national anthem, I get misty-eyed.”
It seems that terrorism has never been so successful.
Verne Vitrofsky of Hollywood — who has lived most of her life in the Bronx — is waiting word on Alan Upton, a friend of hers who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald LP, a bond brokerage that lost about 700 employees. He worked on the 105th floor of the north tower.
Upton and Vitrofsky were two of four people who periodically gathered together for fun.
Another member of the group, Jody Mercein, still lives in New York at nearby Battery Park City, and had left Cantor Fitzgerald a year ago. It took Vitrofsky a while to find out, but Mercein was alive, and she has been calling her at least twice a day since the attacks.
Though she doesn’t want to keep looking at the images on TV, Vitrofsky says she’s drawn to them.
“I was afraid to fly before; now I’m petrified. I have not turned off the TV. We were going to go to Greece next year, but we’re not going to now.”
Financial impact
Though many have expressed fears about their financial futures, John Hamilton, the manager of the technical support department at Niles Audio in Kendall, says that’s part of getting past the incidents.
“I think there’s a great deal of concern, caution,” he says, “but I think that what you’re seeing now is just a lot of people saying there are a lot more important things going on and those other things will be taken care of.”
For instance, he says, those at his job, as well as other friends, say they’re spending more time with their families.
Hamilton, who lost a friend of 20 years when flight attendant Robert Fangman was killed on United Flight 175, which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center, is self-conscious about not changing his routine because of what happened — though he says there are times when he stops and just refuses to believe that it even happened.
“If you change your lifestyle because of what happened, the bad guys — whoever they are — won. The most important thing you can do is continue to do what you always did, and say, `I’m not afraid of you.'”
According to some experts, the events of Sept. 11 have become more than a trigger for prolonged stress.
It represents a unique and profound shift in the psyche of Americans.
“It is a nationwide trauma in the sense that even the people who didn’t live in the area now have the perception their safety isn’t as guaranteed as they thought it was,” says Steve Gold, a psychologist.
The act dwarfs 1995’s Oklahoma City tragedy, he says, the only incident since World War II that even compares.
“We just thought we were too strong, too powerful to be pierced. We quickly found out that’s just not true,” Gold says. “It happened with no warning, with no evasive action, and we know that if they can do this, what’s to stop someone from doing something as bad or worse tomorrow?”
It’s an overhanging threat that has existed in other countries for a long time, says Sean Byrne, who came to the United States from Northern Ireland, and now is a professor of conflict resolution at Nova Southeastern University.
It’s an event that seems inevitable in hindsight because of the global nature of economies and politics.
“Whether [the terrorism] was done internally or externally,” Byrne says, “it was bound to happen. It’s the changing nature of our international context: No one place is isolated. It’s the nature of the global economy, the global village. We’re all interconnected.”
The conflict now, Byrne says, “is transnational, it’s a movement that transcends state boundaries. You’ve got to rethink everything.”
Revelations
It gave Bill Lipp, who owns and operates with partners a firm selling consumer electronics, a series of small revelations about himself and life.
Though he never thought this terrorist act could have occurred in the United States, let alone on such a scale, it has reaffirmed his feelings about life.
“I’m 49, and I feel like every day’s a gift anyway. Life’s minute by minute, and you can’t count on anything. This makes me realize each day counts more than before; but I don’t have this overwhelming sense of fear.”
Not Pearl Harbor
It’s a unique situation in American history, and is not comparable to the Pearl Harbor attack, Gold says.
“This isn’t just about a catastrophe in a particular part of the country. It’s about all of us having basic assumptions about the safety and security of this country shaken at its very core. In modern history, our country has never been a battlefield.”
Expect Americans’ feelings of anxiety to subside if they work toward a constructive use of their feelings, Gold says, but the nature of the incident is both unique and profound
Gold compares the general American reaction to that of a crime victim’s.
“You never think crime will happen to you until it happens to you. This is what happened to the country. Acts of war happen in other countries, not in the U.S. Sept. 11 absolutely shattered that conviction.”
Byrne says all countries who experience terrorism get back to normal, but with a chilling difference.
“It’s a question of resiliency. Remember when drive-by shootings were unique? They go on every day now, and we don’t act out of the ordinary.”
The first time terrorism strikes a country, Byrne says, “yes, people are going to get upset. But after a while, it becomes normalized. Individuals accept they’re going to die. Once you make that acceptance, that there’s a possibility that you can die during your daily life, then you just say OK and go about your stuff.”
As long as the footage of the crash exists, Meckling says she will always feel the pain of her friends’ deaths.
“A lady told me, at least I didn’t have to see them die,” Meckling says. “Yes I did, I told her. Every time they show that video of the plane going into the tower, I watch them die.”
Biederman says she can see her anxiety waning — just not now. “It’ll wear off a little bit. Like mourning, when you grieve, become angry, then accept. But because it’s going to be a long haul, I don’t think the effect of this will go away as fast.”
Though her son Joshua, 16, says his nervousness is waning, “I’m scared there might be a war,” and not because he’s two years away from draft age.
It’s that general fear that experts say may never wane, at least with this generation.
“What if they drop biochemical weapons?” Joshua asks.