[img]96|left|||no_popup[/img] Dateline Jerusalem — Every year Israelis prepare for possible attack by their enemies as sirens scream during the day and evening drills. People are supposed to rush to their shelters with their gas masks, if they are available. Those residing in modern homes and apartment buildings have special steel and concrete enclosed rooms in their individual apartments. The rest of us peons living or working in buildings more than 10 years old must gather in a shelter in the basement of the building.

In the past, I had been at work when the yearly sirens went off. Once I heard the siren only because I was sitting next to an open window and knew when the drill was to take place. No one else in the office heard it. Another time my co-workers and I went to a shelter in the office building that had only a few chairs (the majority of us stood), a tank of filthy drinking water, and a toilet without a seat. Designated people in a building have the key to the shelter.

Usually when Palestinians launch rockets and missiles from Gaza into Israel, Israelis in the city of Sderot have 9 to15 seconds to seek shelter. That translates into “immediately,” something of an impossibility if not already in the shelter. Supposedly where I live I will have less than a minute. But during the so-called “cease fire,” when rockets and missiles are still being sent from Gaza, but not as many in a day as when there was no cease fire, the Palestinians now have been able to amass long-or do they plead for your intervention?range rockets and missiles. Now I probably have less than 45 seconds to reach safety.

Today during the first drill, it took me almost 3 minutes from the time I heard the siren to find my shoes and walk down 4 flights of stairs to the shelter in my building. The siren stopped before I made it down the stairway. Three other people and I, retired senior citizens except for jobless me, waited a full 5 minutes for someone with a key to open the shelter's door. No one came, and we went upstairs when the 10-minute drill was over.

I was angry. It was bad enough that I probably would never make it down to the shelter in time, but it was outrageous to have the door locked when everyone in the country had been given advance notice that there would be a drill. If, with advance notice, the shelter was locked, I can just imagine what would happen if it were the “real thing” and not just a drill.

The evening drill fared no better. My shoes were on, so I was ready to leap to my feet at the sound of the siren alarm. It still took me a couple of minutes to reach the shelter of my building. Eight of us were waiting for the door to the shelter to open and let us into “safety,” an Ethiopian family, a Russian lady and me. The senior citizens who came for the morning drill did not bother to come down for the evening drill. And like earlier in the day, we waited and waited. No one came to our “rescue.”

I Was Not Prepared

I think all residents of the building should have a key for the shelter. It is irresponsible of the Vaad (the homeowner association that charges an arm and a leg for their services) to not have anyone available in an emergency. I do not own my apartment, I rent, and therefore have no say-so in the running of the building. The only thing I do is pay the monthly Vaad fee. Sort of a taxation without representation. Only I have no tea to throw overboard into Boston Harbor.

Of course, I was not exactly prepared, either. I had forgotten to take my gas mask with me, not that I would have known what to do with it in the first place. My emergency bag with food, medicine, clothes, water, flashlight, bandages, etc. (it used to be my earthquake-preparedness bag), which hangs next to my living room door (so I will not forget it), was forgotten.

An alternative to the basement shelter is to stay in the stairwell. That might be okay in some of the buildings where friends live. Their stairwells are surrounded by concrete walls, not open to glass areas. My stairwell is wide open with only a handrail on one side. The other day as I opened my door to leave my apartment, I looked up and saw the landing of the floor above mine with a large wide horizontal crack running across it. My first thought was, “That floor is going to crack and collapse.” If the floor above me were to fall, I would become a virtual prisoner in my apartment. But considering everything in my dump of an apartment is broken, from electrical to plumbing, cracks in the structure of the building do not surprise me.

I guess it all comes down to one thing. Everything is G-d's will. If I am to survive a war here, it will not matter whether there is a shelter for me to go to. I will survive only if it is meant for me to survive. Perhaps that is why the people in my building did not take the drill seriously.

L'hitraot.  Shachar