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Yesterday evening, I answered the phone to hear a robo
message from the city. It was dark already, there were no weather alerts and
for the first time since I was in elementary school in the 50s, my breath froze
in my chest, as I waited for the warning. Were we about to be hit with a
nuclear attack? For the first time in more than 60 years, I knew that it was a
possibility. North Korea proved yesterday they have the ability to put an armed
missile on the continental United States.
We don’t have air raid sirens here. We have tornado sirens,
but they are different. Tornados are savage and can wreck anything in their
path, but they cannot destroy the earth and leave it barren and uninhabitable.
We can clean up and pick up the pieces after a tornado. We can’t do that after
a nuclear attack.
Yesterday evening the warning was to alert us to a burn ban
in our county. I could breathe again, share the warning and go to sleep last
night. But it is different now. I will never receive another message from our
city warning system without feeling the clench of fear that there may not be a
tomorrow.
