Getting injured even if there is no direct missile hit or falling shrapnel
And how our habits may have changed in the new wartime 'normal'
Even without any direct hits or falling shrapnel,
injuries can happen during alerts.
Wartime normal
An alarm goes off suddenly. It’s not like memorial days in Israel that are marked by one- or two-minute sirens. Then you know the date and time the siren will sound when you and everyone else will freeze in place together, in silent remembrance of the Holocaust that decimated our people or the soldiers who fell in the many attempts by our neighbours to wipe us off the map. It is not a pleasant sound, for sure, but it is not ‘alarming.’
On the other hand, when the air is suddenly and ‘somewhat’ unexpectedly pierced by a missile or drone alert, your entire physical emergency alert system is switched on. I say ‘somewhat’ because we all, every single Israeli old enough to be able to tell time, in every part of the country by now, is aware that an alert can go off without ‘warning’ at any instant of any day. That is at the back of all our minds, I think, even for those who have not yet, during this war, been sent looking for shelter. (Is there even one place in the country where that has not yet happened?) And, while that knowledge is at the back of our minds, we go about life AS IF things are normal.
When I am going anywhere these days, and I believe that is true of most people, my eyes scan the environment to see where I would go if an alert went off. If there are no public shelters near enough, are there buildings with open doors — are these buildings tall enough so that if I stand in the stairwell I am high enough off the ground that shrapnel of an exploding missile will not find me after impact? Are they tall enough so that if I am on the second floor landing, there are enough floors between me and the roof so that if a missile comes through the roof, it likely will not reach me?
And people may prefer to go the long way to get places rather than take a short-cut through a park with no buildings and, therefore, no place to hide from incomings or the falling shrapnel from an intercepted missile. Many injuries and some deaths have occured during this war from falling shrapnel to people who either had no shelter or who stayed outside to videotape the interceptions above.
These days, when I am driving, I am also scanning the road to see if there are sheltering spots along the way. Contrary to my usual habit, rather than driving in the left lane because I drive fast, I now often (but not always, habit change slowly) drive in the right-hand lane — and certainly NOT in the middle lane — so that I can more easily stop the car on the shoulder of the road and distance myself from the car, lie down on the ground, and cover my head.
And I may now drive with the window open regardless of the weather so I can more easily hear an alert if I am the only vehicle on the road.
How many of us ask store staff where the closest shelter is in case of a siren?
All of this is now normal here.
The Alerts
The rising and falling tones get under your skin and into your bones. Regardless of how tired you may have been the moment before, you get an adrenaline rush that wakes up your mind and body in a natural self-protection mode and you seek shelter. Because we have been, and continue to be, instructed over and over again to be careful on the way to shelter, we may be able to compel our limbs to take us at a kind-of slow speed-walk rather than the more natural run-for-our-lives, the former of which is safer.
However, if we have stairs on the way to the shelter or we are perhaps not in the best of health or we are elderly or a child, the involuntary trembling of our limbs and hearts may cause us to fall. We hear about such injuries in reports following many alert events.
Residents of the Gaza Envelope have had decades of missile attacks and they are familiar with seeking shelter in the 15 seconds they PERHAPS have before a missile either hits or is intercepted (intercepted, that is, since the Iron Dome became operational in 2011). Residents of the northern border area, including Nahariya, Tzfat, Maalot-Tarshiha) likewise have had much experience with periodic eruptions of hostilities from Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorists. During this war, the northern region that has had to get used to being under alert has expanded first to Acco (and just now, as I write these words, alerts went off close to our northern border) and then to Haifa and then east to Karmiel, followed by extention to Yokneam and Zichron Yaakov. This map shows an approximation of this ‘new north.’
Our familiarity with alerts means that we now respond more automatically and less in-shock to the danger the siren signifies. While we still feel the adrenaline rush, we are less likely than those less practised than us to rash and random behaviours. Thank goodness the example below is the only such incident of its kind that I know of, but it clearly demonstrates how ‘alarming’ an alert is for us.
The man was rushing to a shelter on the other side of the road and, in a panic, saw only his target destination and not danger in the road. He reportedly got up and limped to the shelter, only having been lightly injured.
I can understand his behaviour, however dangerous, more than the pedestrians and the driver of the car, none of whom sought protective shelter during the alert. I wonder if they will be so apathetic at the next siren given that shrapnel fell not far from here and seriously damaged a building in a residential and commercial area, causing five injuries, one serious, two moderate, and two light.
BTW, there are various sounds that mimic the beginning tones of an alert, such as the revving of a motorcycle. In our current state, many of us are highly upset with motorcycle drivers who do not take into consideration our sensitivity to the sound.
And booms — sudden noises that mimic booms cause us to stop and pay attention. This may be a large truck going too quickly over a traffic bump or car doors being slammed shut. And now that winter is here, thunder can do that to us.
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Well described, Sheri. A few weeks ago my four year old grandson who lives near Carmiel was here (in Jerusalem) for Shabbat. He knows a thing or two about booms and running to shelters. When my upstairs neighbour's' children began loudly stomping about ( very annoying, as the three of them are all over ten years old), the little child suddenly looked up, eyes locked frozen with concern. The noise reminded him of an incoming boom! Yes, indeed, it is hard to tell the difference between certain sounds and noises.
Thanks for sharing the daily realities of Israeli life. I share to social media here to provide a bit of understanding that never makes MSM. Appreciate all that you're doing.