ANXIETY

A widely shared loss leaves few unmarked

By Anne Barnard and Patricia Wen, Globe Staff, 9/13/2001

n her way to a Waltham paint shop yesterday morning to choose a shade of gray for her house, Edna Page hesitated. The errand seemed so frivolous.

Virak Han went back to work at a coffee shop in the Prudential Center, Boston's second-tallest building. But he was ready to flee at the slightest whiff of danger.

And Matt Murphy, a bicycle messenger making deliveries near the John Hancock building, couldn't help jumping at every siren, glancing up toward any noise from the sky.

Whether in the suburbs or in buildings that were evacuated as potential targets the day before, people in the Boston area found it hard to return to routine yesterday. There had been no time to process the almost unbelievable events Tuesday. And as events continued to unfold here and across the nation, it became clear that things were not back to normal.

The sirens that blared during Murphy's cigarette break were the sound of police vehicles bound for the Westin Hotel around the corner, where a SWAT team took three people into custody, believing they were involved in the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, but not before police cars blocked off streets and partly evacuated the hotel.

And the only planes in the sky were fighter jets patrolling the East Coast. Again and again, people spoke of waking up to the sound with an odd combination of feelings: relief that the Air Force was protecting them and shock that such a measure could be necessary. ''It feels like a different world,'' said Murphy, 24.

Even people with no direct connection to the tragedy are probably suffering from acute stress after seeing images of the attacks again and again in the news media, said Dr. Frederick Stoddard, a psychiatrist who specializes in trauma.

Stoddard, past president of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Association, said people exposed to violent and vivid images often show at least mild forms of post-traumatic stress, which include lack of concentration, intrusive and involuntary recall of traumatic images, nightmares, and irritablity.

''There's a general loss of interest in normal activities,'' he said, which explains why so many people feel purposeless picking up their dry cleaning or going for their monthly hair cut.

Across the region, people teetered between growing newly suspicious of others and feeling, as Murphy put it, ''that we're all in it together.''

Business people who normally look down on bike messengers made eye contact, and cars he expected to cut him off instead hung back to let him pass. ''People's eyes look different,'' he said.

A Cambridge construction worker said he, too, felt more benevolent today. ''I got cut off on the road today, but I just let the guy go and didn't react,'' he said. ''Normally I would blow my top off, but today I had more things to think about.''

Yet there were signs elsewhere of a new wariness, at least for now.

The observation deck at the Hancock tower was closed, and security guards stood on the sidewalk. At the Prudential, workers had to show ID to get to tower offices, including Gilette and other major companies. Stores were open, but business was noticeably slower, sales clerks said.

Juanita Tarnowski, 65, said she wasn't afraid to wheel her groceries from the Star Market through the Prudential mall on her way home to the South End, as usual. But the fact that the hijacked planes took off from Boston gave her a newfound fear. ''I'm going to be more cautious and look at people more closely and maybe be slower to go into crowds,'' she said.

Workers in the towers were focused on the fact that they could have been targets or that they knew people in the financial world who had died Tuesday.

Ann Morgan, 56, marketing director at Digitas on the 23d floor, recalled standing in a conference room Tuesday morning, looking at the view of Logan Airport, and realizing she could be in danger.

Chris Martin, 30, who works for Investors Bank & Trust on the 30th floor of the Hancock Building, said his colleagues fear that many of the financial analysts they do business with may have died.

Other reactions were more individual. Helena Shepher, a chiropractor's assistant, said she had new worries that her engagement to a Newton man would keep her apart from her family, because she won't feel safe flying to visit them in Los Angeles.

Han, 19, who works at Timothy's World Coffee in the Prudential mall, said his parents, Cambodians who lived through that country's civil war, suffered flashbacks Tuesday. He said he had trouble sleeping for fear that terrorists would break into his home in Revere.

Asked why they would come after him, he retorted, ''Why would they come after the World Trade Center?''

Jeff Hernandez, who grew up in Queens, said his identity as a New Yorker was shaken by the building's destruction. ''It's like a part of you has been attacked, has been changed,'' he said.

At Anchovies, a neighborhood bar in the South End, people congregated Tuesday night to comfort one another.

''You feel like your home is safe,'' said Tom Berube, 49. ''All of a sudden, someone breaks in and vandalizes your home.

''I'm not going to go into a bomb shelter and hide, but still I'm going to feel vulnerable.''

This story ran on page A12 of the Boston Globe on 9/13/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.