New Yorkers Can’t Shake Fears

Two weeks after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the nerves of this hard-boiled city continued to fray, as some skittish citizens girded themselves for chemical warfare and the mayor announced drastic measures to deal with “horrible” traffic congestion.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on Tuesday sought to kick-start the city’s sluggish psychic recovery, pleading with residents to help the city get back to its regular routine.

“There’s no reason to have this increased fear,” Giuliani said. “[The Sept. 11 attack] was a once-in-our-history incident. Day in and day out, this is the safest city in America.”

But it has also become even more gridlocked than usual, and on Tuesday commuters experienced severe delays--some as long as three hours--at most major bridges and crossings into Manhattan.

Giuliani blamed the snarls on increased security at New York’s tunnels and bridges, and the reluctance of many commuters to go back to public transportation.

“People aren’t using the subways as much as they could. They’re using their cars instead,” said Giuliani, who added that subway ridership was at about 85% of normal. Some transportation advocates blamed the low number on the fact that a number of lower Manhattan stations and lines are closed.

Beginning Thursday, Giuliani said, authorities will begin restricting traffic into Manhattan to cars carrying two or more people. Still to be worked out is whether the restriction will apply to traffic from other New York boroughs or traffic from New Jersey, or both.

For many people, however, the big issue was personal safety, and military supply store operators reported that customers have been snapping up $90 gas masks and clamoring for carbon-embedded chemical suits instead of the American flags they demanded just a week before.

“The first week it was flags, now it’s gas masks,” said Richard Geist, vice president of Uncle Sam’s Army Navy Outfitters in Greenwich Village.

“Yesterday was the busiest day in the history of our company. We sold close to 500 masks,” Geist said Tuesday. “We normally sell three or four a week. Now we’re selling 300 to 400 a day.”

He and other store employees said the fear is being driven in part by reports that terrorists were interested in crop-dusting airplanes.

Geist said people are buying 20 or 30 at a time for themselves, their children--even their dogs. One young woman came in to the store and asked if the masks come in different colors. (Answer: no, they’re basic black.)

Among Geist’s customers this week was Michael Wildes, a Manhattan immigration attorney, former federal prosecutor and a member of the Englewood, N.J., City Council.

Wildes ducked into the store late Monday and bought 55 Canadian government-issue gas masks--totaling about $5,000. Then he told Geist he was interested in ordering 3,000 more.

Wildes said he has given masks to family members and law firm colleagues, and will ask council members about acquiring the extra 3,000 as part of a citywide emergency plan in the event of a chemical attack.

“The likelihood of it [deadly gas] being disseminated in a big population, like the New York area, in retaliation for an attack is high,” Wildes said, noting Englewood’s 29,000 residents live just over the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan.

Several blocks away, clerks at another military store have logged up to 250 calls an hour inquiring about masks and suits. Manager Larry Lopez has taken to answering the phone: “Weiss and Mahoney. We’re out of gas masks. How can I help you?”

Lopez said he hasn’t seen this kind of run on survivalist gear since some people thought the world was going to end on Jan. 1, 2000. He said the store normally stocks 200 gas masks at $29 apiece, but has long ago sold out. It had to search all the way to Texas to find more, and will soon offer a mask and gas-resistant, carbon-embedded suit for $49.

Gun sales also are up across the nation, said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Assn. He said people’s feelings of fear are rational.

“No one knows what form a new terrorist attack might take or what the consequences might be,” LaPierre said. “When the threat’s unknown, people say, ‘I’d rather face that threat with a firearm than without.’ ”

On Tuesday, however, Giuliani stressed that the threats were minimal in New York, where the crime rate since the attack has taken a “dramatic plunge” to a 40-year low.

“People should feel every confidence . . . that they have about as much safety as you’re capable of in life,” he said.

Also Tuesday, workers removed the frame of the World Trade Center’s south tower. The wall will be preserved for possible use as a memorial.

Giuliani also said that starting today, the city will begin helping families of missing people prepare applications for death certificates. Giuliani said this is necessary to help families achieve closure, and because many bodies won’t ever be recovered.

Late Tuesday, the number of missing was adjusted once again, to 6,347, because of duplicate counts. City officials said 287 bodies had been recovered and 224 of them had been identified. Workers have removed 115,755 tons of rubble.