Summer Scares: A Timeline
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Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert wrote in Current that rising oceans are a bigger threat to U.S. cities than bomb-toting terrorists. While terror threats are real, overhyped summer scares usually aren't. Here's what spooked media chicken littles in the last five years and what really should have scared us silly. Michael Soller
What we fretted about 2005  Killer flu: A vaccine gap and a Russian bird-flu outbreak sparked fears of an influenza influx. Feathers flew, but writer Wendy Orent cautioned in The Times: "Lethal diseases don't fall out of the sky."2003 SARS: In early 2003, the viral respiratory illness killed 770 people more than 20 countries, most in Asia. As the epidemic eased in May, so did U.S. travel advisories but Asian travel still dropped off the map. 2002  Child abduction: After Samantha Runnion, Erica Pratt and Elizabeth Smart (pictured in poster at left) were abducted in summer 2002, Fox host Bill O'Reilly declared 2002 "a summer of hell for America kids." 2001  Sharks: Time magazine christened 2001 the "summer of the shark" in July after an 8-year-old boy lost his arm in a Florida attack. "Sharks come silently, without warning," the cover story began. | The real deal  Hurricane Katrina: Just before the Category-4 storm struck New Orleans Aug. 28, federal officials warned Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff and President Bush that the city's levees were at risk. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,"Bush said a few days later.Iraq insurgency: Bush declared the Iraq war "mission accomplished" May 2, and nearly 200 U.S. soldiers died in attacks over the next four months.  Western wildfires: In the second largest Western fire season in the past 50 years, 21 firefighters died and 7.1 million acres burned, causing $2 billion in damage.  9/11: Suicide bombers flew planes into the World Trade Center (left) and Pentagon. The 9/11 commission investigating the attacks concluded in 2004, "We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat." |