5 Years After Terror Attacks, Are We Safer? Life Since 9/11: Better Prepared, Still Jittery

Summary

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Five years after the terrorists crashed commercial airplanes into buildings, Americans still, to a degree, have the collective jitters. True, spilled coffee creamer in the office lunchroom no longer prompts an automatic, full-blown Haz-Mat response. But unattended satchels at the Union Avenue train station in New Haven continue to cause alarm and bags discarded in a reservoir still create quite a spectacle.

Case in point: On Tuesday, the Higby Reservoir in Middlefield was taken out of service after a passerby saw a woman throw a "suspicious" bag into it. State police divers responded as did the Middletown Water Authority, two fire departments and the Department of Public Health, among others.

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Extract

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5 Years After Terror Attacks, Are We Safer? Life Since 9/11: Better Prepared, Still Jittery

The bag contained lemons and peppers. Hasmitaben Patel, 34, of Meriden was charged with littering and breach of peace.

Now, with the five-year anniversary of 9/11 upon us, the intelligence community overhauled, two wars undertaken and billions spent on homeland security, the questions at hand is this:

Are we really any safer?

The answer can differ depending on with whom you ask.

If safer means better prepar...

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