Since my experience with the air raid sirens going off my second day in Israel, I have a new Israeli obsession: Bomb Shelters.
It really is an easy obsession for me to have because living in the Midwest has lead me to a minor obsession with tornado shelters. Each time we have purchased a house, I have looked carefully through the basement looking for the ideal storm shelter. Lowest level, center of house or totally underground, no windows, close to a staircase (staircases are built extra strong) and nothing heavy overhead. For example, you do not want to be sitting in a tornado shelter under a baby grand piano or a refrigerator.
I can almost hear my favorite weather man, Gary, go through his tornado ‘rant’: children who are home alone, do not worry, just go to the lowest level, small, center most room in the house, no windows. This might not be his exact words, but they echo in my mind.
So it is easy for me to transfer my intense concern about tornado shelters to the essential concern for a bomb shelter.
In Israel most people live in apartment buildings. The old ones were not built with bomb shelters. Instead when the sirens go off, the people sit in their staircases…center most area of the house, no windows, reinforced concrete. A relative safe place to sit through a barrage of rockets or bombs, I guess. As I wrote in an earlier blog, my daughter’s apartment has a Momad, a room in her apartment built of extra thick walls, reinforced concrete, special window which has a thick metal plate that sides out and a thick metal door. It is easy to get to and somewhat safer than the rest of the rooms.
But what do you do when you are outside and you need to take shelter. Well there is a system. My daughter took me on a walk to explain sheltering when out side. First she suggested that I hide under an apartment building. In Israel most apartment buildings have car parking underneath and the first apartments are on the ‘second floor.’
She said, “Go to the North or West side of the house and take cover there. Those sides are safer.” She also told me to try the door. If it was unlocked just go in. “What! to a building where I don’t know anyone?” “Of course,” she responded. “During a siren of course they want you to come in.” Or if I am near a store, just go in.
I have to admit that for a tornado siren, we go to the north and east side of the basement. The storms usually come from the southwest, so I do have to change that orientation. And although I would not run into a stranger’s house during a tornado, I definitely have been known to enter a store I was near by when the tornado sirens went off.
But the best is to be near a bomb shelter and go into it. In Israel, the government takes bomb shelters seriously! And there are many community bomb shelters throughout the country. This is definitely why, even thought tens of thousands of rockets, drones, bombs, and missiles, have been launched towards Israel, tens of thousands of people have not been killed. Instead they had the ability to take shelter from the attacks and be somewhat safe.
Just as we in the Midwest know that in many public buildings there are signs to lead us to the tornado shelter, and so even though we have many horrendous tornados, the death toll has gone down over the years.
After my daughter pointed out where to hide under a building, we walked the two blocks to the little strip shopping area near her apartment. In the back was the entrance to the shelter. It is near a staircase, in the center of the building. Gary the weatherman would be so happy. Bomb shelters are like tornado shelters in many ways!!
As we continued on our walk along the streets and alleys of Holon, we walked through many small parks. Within a one mile radius of my daughter’s apartment building are dozens of small parks, day care centers and schools. Located in the center of many of them are bomb shelters. Which makes sense, because children cannot run as quickly as adults. So best to have the shelter close at hand. What I really liked about the shelters is that the outsides are colorfully decorated to make them look cheerful and part of the fun of the park. In Holon, I think the same artist decorated most of them.
I thought about how difficult it would be for children to stop playing to run into the shelter, hide for ten minutes or so before coming out. And then I thought back to when my children were young. They NEVER argued when there was a tornado warning. When the sirens sounded, we all immediately went downstairs to the shelter. Sometimes they grabbed a cat if they could. But there was NEVER an argument. Never a discussion. Never rebellion. Taking shelter was the immediate goal. And then when the danger was over, we left the shelter. Sometimes it was 15 to 20 minutes. And sometimes we were down there for an hour or more. But when it was over, life just resumed. So I have to assume that children in Israel have the same response to a siren for a bomb attack as my children had for a tornado warning. Don’t argue, take shelter.
I do have to admit one caveat to taking shelter: Dads and husbands.. When my husband was home during a storm and tornado warning, sometimes he would stand outside for a while and watch the weather. This to me was not the brightest thing to do. But as many know, you a watch lots of videos of tornados heading towards someone’s home, and then finally someone yells, “We need to go inside now.” In Israel the same type of poeple stand outside and take videos of the Iron Dome rockets intercepting the missiles or bombs sent into Israel. I don’t quite understand this desire to watch in real time. But I do admit watching these videos myself.
But there is a major difference between a tornado siren and an air raid sirens. The intent. For a tornado you have to watch out for the debris. For a rocket/missile you have to watch out for the shrapnel. Similar but not exactly the same. Nature doesn’t take aim at your home because it hates you, it just is. While bombs falling around you are sent purposefully to kill you. That does change the dynamic of sheltering.
Although tornado shelters are here to stay, people should not have to have bomb shelters in their homes or their play grounds. Humans cannot stop tornados, but they can stop bombing each other with intent to kill. It is time for it to end.
zicharonot 