Mr. Mayor, Please Put On Your Thinking Cap
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Thursday morning, as I was getting ready for work (and running WAY late, as is always the case), a jet flew overhead so low and was so loud that I quite literally dropped, ducked, and had a mild panic attack in my bedroom.
Another jet went overhead afterwards, but it wasn’t as loud. About ten minutes later, another, though also not quite as loud. At that point, I turned on NY1, our all New York news, all the time station, to see if something had happened (no way was I going to go get on the subway if a plane had crashed into midtown) and they were in the midst of showing Wednesday night’s lotto numbers so I figured all was fine. Maybe there were wind conditions that required a shift in flight paths to go over my apartment? And forced the planes to fly really low? By this point, I was really late, so I ran out the door, hopped on the subway, and got off by the Park as I normally do.
I heard another plane, so I looked up, and sure enough there was a jet circling around the Park at a pretty low altitude. I’ve now decided the whole thing might be related to Fleet Week, which was upon us.
Maybe I’m being uptight, but let’s all just concede that if you feel like buzzing a major city in the USA, New York is probably not the one to pick, given what happened here a few months short of five years ago. Who authorized this? Who thought New Yorkers wouldn’t mind the sounds of roaring jet engines overhead in the morning? What city official though, “Yeah! Let’s celebrate [whatever the hell it is they were celebrating] by having low-flying jets around Central Park!!!” Is this person trying to make me lose my mind?
It’s enough that I just push all normal concerns out of my mind every time I get on a bus or on the subway, every time I hear a flurry of sirens, every time a “CNN Breaking News” alert hits my inbox. And I’m a very calm and rational person. I grew up in LA among floods, fires, earthquakes, and the Rodney King riots. When shit goes down, I know you just point yourself towards home, stay calm, and enact one of your seventy-thousand contingency plans. (And despite my semi-apocalyptic state of mind, I truly don’t sit around obsessing about all of this once the plan is, erm, set. Point being: am I a little grim? Yes. Am I slightly crazy and often paralyzed by potential disaster scenarios? Really, I'm not.)
When I got back yesterday from a blessed weekend away, my roommate mentioned that our NPR station aired a small piece about the planes--apparently city phonelines were inundated with complaints and panicked calls. Turns out it WAS for Fleet Week, and those planes? Were BLUE DEVILS. Or something like that. I'm just slightly flabbergasted that this was approved, and that they didn't think to, I don't know, warn the people of this city beforehand. Especially given that they've banned hot coffee from the subways, citing "safety". Because definitely, the next terrorist will be throwing scalding coffee at riders at random. Yep. Definitely.
Hm, I'd better start on a contingency plan for that one, hadn't I?
Another jet went overhead afterwards, but it wasn’t as loud. About ten minutes later, another, though also not quite as loud. At that point, I turned on NY1, our all New York news, all the time station, to see if something had happened (no way was I going to go get on the subway if a plane had crashed into midtown) and they were in the midst of showing Wednesday night’s lotto numbers so I figured all was fine. Maybe there were wind conditions that required a shift in flight paths to go over my apartment? And forced the planes to fly really low? By this point, I was really late, so I ran out the door, hopped on the subway, and got off by the Park as I normally do.
I heard another plane, so I looked up, and sure enough there was a jet circling around the Park at a pretty low altitude. I’ve now decided the whole thing might be related to Fleet Week, which was upon us.
Maybe I’m being uptight, but let’s all just concede that if you feel like buzzing a major city in the USA, New York is probably not the one to pick, given what happened here a few months short of five years ago. Who authorized this? Who thought New Yorkers wouldn’t mind the sounds of roaring jet engines overhead in the morning? What city official though, “Yeah! Let’s celebrate [whatever the hell it is they were celebrating] by having low-flying jets around Central Park!!!” Is this person trying to make me lose my mind?
It’s enough that I just push all normal concerns out of my mind every time I get on a bus or on the subway, every time I hear a flurry of sirens, every time a “CNN Breaking News” alert hits my inbox. And I’m a very calm and rational person. I grew up in LA among floods, fires, earthquakes, and the Rodney King riots. When shit goes down, I know you just point yourself towards home, stay calm, and enact one of your seventy-thousand contingency plans. (And despite my semi-apocalyptic state of mind, I truly don’t sit around obsessing about all of this once the plan is, erm, set. Point being: am I a little grim? Yes. Am I slightly crazy and often paralyzed by potential disaster scenarios? Really, I'm not.)
When I got back yesterday from a blessed weekend away, my roommate mentioned that our NPR station aired a small piece about the planes--apparently city phonelines were inundated with complaints and panicked calls. Turns out it WAS for Fleet Week, and those planes? Were BLUE DEVILS. Or something like that. I'm just slightly flabbergasted that this was approved, and that they didn't think to, I don't know, warn the people of this city beforehand. Especially given that they've banned hot coffee from the subways, citing "safety". Because definitely, the next terrorist will be throwing scalding coffee at riders at random. Yep. Definitely.
Hm, I'd better start on a contingency plan for that one, hadn't I?
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 3:46 PM.
|
