A newspaper article referencing how ill pepared our country is in response to a major public health emergency such as bioterrorism or flu pandemic.

   I was reading an article in my local newspaper that was discussing how ill prepared we are as a country in light of September 11, 2001. It seems that those in Washington just cannot come up with a workable plan for the individual states to adhere to. Such a pity!
   What is it going to take for this country to come together with a workable plan in case we are ever attacked again? This is the conclusion that they came up with:
                    HOW STATES FARED
   Some results from the report on disaster readiness:
           *Texas was one of twelve states that
              satisfied eight of the ten possible criteria.
              It failed in  two areas because of a
              nursing shortage and the number of
              adults 65 or older who have been
              inoculated for pneumonia.
           *Only Oklahoma met all ten benchmarks,
              and only Kansas achieved nine.
            *California, Iowa, Maryland and New Jersey
              earned the worst scores, meeting only four.
            *Half of the states would run out of hospital
               beds within two weeks of a moderate
               outbreak.
             *Only fifteen states, along with New York
               City and Chicago are prepared to deliver
                vaccines and medicines quickly from the
                federal government's Strategic National
                Stockpile.
           
   Thinking back, I remember where we were when the airplane hit the first tower that morning and how horrified I was. (Well, I still remember where I was when President Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed. This in and of itself is another story.)
    My husband and I were with my youngest son,  standing in the Department of Motor Vehicles waiting for him to take his road test.  My tiny eight inch portable television was in my car.  I ran out to retreive it so I could get a handle on what was going on.
   My first response was to begin making telephone calls to find out how many of my friends and family were in or near the twin towers.
    I used to ride the train on weekends when I was a young girl to watch the construction workers building the towers. It was something many of us did.
    I kept trying and trying and just could not get a telephone call through!  The telephone lines were all tied up that day. My son in the meantime, took his road test, while I waited outside the building. It was difficult to get television reception inside the building.
    Within a few minutes, other people began standing around me to find out what was going on. Some stood there in shock, some decided to go home to be with their families, while others began to cry.
    My son passed his driving test and I continued to try calling home, while my husband drove us home. When we arrived home, I turned on the television and began taping. The three of us took turns trying to make telephone calls until later in the evening we finally got one through.
     Some of my friends and family were stuck, being forced to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, covered in soot and ash and finding it difficult to breath. Some had to remain in the city.
    On my husband's side it was the same story, but one was missing. ( I know I am only sitting her writing about what happened that day, but the emotions still remain.)
     It was getting late and my husband was trying desperately to reach his place of employment. He might know some of the people who were on board the two American Airlines flights that day.
    Slowly my attention was drawn to him because I realized he would have to report to work that night. Funny, as much as I wanted him to remain home I knew he had to go.
    Well, he went to work that night and I remained awake, continuing to watch and tape everything. I continued to make phone calls all night long because we still had one family member who was missing.
    When my husband was able to get a telephone call through he told me that what was going on at work was nothing short of controlled chaos. He did not even know if he would be able to leave in the morning because there were many who did not show up for work.
     He eventually did return home later the next afternoon, he works for American Airlines. The one family member who was missing, he was one of the first responders to the twin towers, a firefighter from Ladder 4.  What was left of his body was found six months later in the rubble of the north tower. Michael Lynch was laid to rest on March 15, 2002 my husbands birthday.