Chapter 5: Department of Homeland Security's warning system

The Department of Homeland Security had the difficult job of creating a way to inform the nation after 9/11 of the level of terrorism in easy, simple words that the general public can understand. The idea of the 5 color levels seemed like a good idea, but with missing links that caused the public to act like "Chicken Little"s: running around like the sky is falling with no one telling them what exactly they should be doing.
We have to have a plan that our city and state officials can tell us what to do according to a national plan in one voice without the background noise of the many different medias of television, internet, and print confusing us. Even though here in Denton, we might not have as much of a threat of terrorism like 9/11, I want the Department of Homeland Security to have a better plan that just looking on the internet at their website or watching CNN for what color the threat is today.
I worry about my family back home in San Antonio because when 9/11 happened, I was a freshman in high school at Texas Military Institute (No, it's not a reform school... it's a private school...) where we are located right next to Camp Bullis and had at the time two other military bases. At the time, we were afraid that if the attacks were not controlled soon that they would target more cities, and San Antonio could be one of the main targets in Texas. That; however, did not happen, but the Department of Homeland Security needs a better plan than just a color code. As a nation, we need to know what we should always have as basics if the level should ever rise and give us more warning then stating what we need to do after the level has already changed.
The case study 5.2 discussed how they mentioned duct tape as a main supply to have in order to seal windows and doors against a terrorist gas attack and soon duct tape flew off the shelves. The Department of Homeland Security needs to learn its lesson from Y2K and all the panic and unnecessary panic that caused the nation. People bought months worth of perishables, water, toilet paper, etcetera because the media hyped up what the loss of computers would do to our world. The same thing can and will happen to our nation if God forbid our level is raised to red or severe condition. People will go into chaos mode by buying out Wal-Mart, boarding up their windows, or using rolls of duct tape in order to secure their safety. The media tends to hype up situations by replaying the same information over and over again and having different people tell their opinions or say their "What if?" scenarios. We need a plan with levels that tell us exactly what the threat is instead of what color it would be and what exactly we need to do at each level and how to prepare if the threat level rises.