Disaster

Days of Disaster:

The hurricane has been a terrible blight on the American South, with economic tremblings that are traveling north. My father informs me that the main gasoline pipeline from the gulf to Atlanta was destroyed in the storm, with the result that the entire city will run out of gas in a few days. How long will that last? Who knows?

But I find that my heart goes out instead to the families of Iraqi pilgrims, who have suffered today the greatest tragedy to befall them for several years. I was once in a crowd that got spooked, and remember it well. It was in the early 1990s, the year the Atlanta Braves first got to play in the World Series. There was a parade downtown, and probably the whole city came out to see it. The Braves had been the worst team in baseball for so many years that, in addition to the pleasure of seeing the home team within reach of the top prize, there was a feeling of great wonder and joy at seeing so complete a reversal. I could not guess how many people were packed into those streets, but I know that they overran the barricades and were pressed so tightly together in places that it was impossible to move.

At one point the crowd began to become aware of the peril of that situation, and several drunken fools began to exploit it. They shouted, and shoved, and tried to panic people: and many in the crowd, for some were frail and easily frightened, did panic. They began to scream, and try to get out: but there was nowhere to go. So they shoved, and the crowd began to sway, back and forth, pressing together so tightly that you felt that you would have to lose your feet in the crush, first forward, now backwards.

At last some people near a side street gave way. Then it turned into a rout, with the whole crowd pushing and shoving and exploding into that space. I remember that some folks broke in the door to a parking garage -- wisely! -- and a part of the crowd escaped up into it, avoiding the chaos below.

I don't know if anyone was hurt, but surely they must have been. I remember hearing that someone had been stabbed, though I don't know if it was true. Still, I understand something of what it is like to be caught in a crush, and I pity and mourn for those who have died in Iraq today.

The bitter irony, of course, is that no suicide bomber or team of such bombers could have killed so many people. Nor, in fact, did the enemy have to so much as lift a finger to kill all of these people: the rumor of their coming was enough. Though they could never have killed so many had they set themselves to it with their fullest might, yet the fear of them did it with a terrible ease.

See here, and learn, how very deadly that fear is. It is the true weapon of the enemy. It is what we must all first learn to overcome.

I wish I knew words to comfort the people of Iraq. There are no such words, of course.