sunndoggy8
10-03-2001, 07:17 PM
Customers snapping up gas masks
By Jeff Gelles <i>
A new shipment of 500 gas masks arrived at the Original I. Goldberg military-surplus store on Chestnut Street yesterday, and though the protection they offered might be more talismanic than technological, a steady stream of customers was buying them.
Derek Connolly bought eight, paying $213.91, tax included. He said four masks were for him, his girlfriend, his mother and his stepfather, and the other four were for someone who works with his mother - the family worrier, who called to tell him that Goldberg's shipment had finally arrived.
"I don't really know how effective they are, but I can guess how effective it would be not to have one," said Connolly, 29, a construction worker who lives in Old City.
Like many other Americans, especially those close to the sites of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, Connolly is concerned about what the future holds. Feeding that anxiety were Attorney General John Ashcroft's warnings of a "clear and present danger" of further terrorist attacks. So were reports that some terror groups may have been seeking chemical and biological weapons.
That possibility was enough to spur Connolly.
"If your only objective is to kill as many people as you can, gas or biological weapons make sense. I can't do anything about biologicals, but maybe I can help a little with gas," he said.
Just how much he can be helped is doubtful.
Tom Harrelson, the store manager, said that the store received the masks from Germany but that, so far, he had been unable to find any documentation of what they were designed to filter.
"I'm thinking smoke, natural gas, tear gas, dust, things like that," Harrelson said. He conceded that there was no reason to think the masks would do any good in the event of an attack with a nerve gas such as sarin, which was used in a Japanese terrorist attack in 1995.
Nor is the protection indefinite, even if the masks' charcoal-filtration system does the job, Harrelson said. "I've been told [a canister lasts] four to eight hours, depending on the concentration in the air."
But those limitations weren't keeping buyers away at the Original I. Goldberg yesterday, any more than they kept customers away at surplus stores last week in the Philadelphia suburbs or around the country.
Nelson Price, owner of the Suburban Army-Navy store in East Norriton Township, said he had sold several hundred gas masks since the attacks in New York and Washington. The demand hit immediately, as soon as he opened for business Sept. 12.
"We sold out that day," he said. "Every day after the bombing I probably got between 40 and 50 and sold out within hours."
In recent days, he has not been able to get any masks - at any price.
Not everybody at the Original I. Goldberg store was interested. Jeff Robbins, 28, of West Philadelphia, walked right past the masks, which were on prominent display near the front door.
"They won't work for whatever purpose they're buying them for," said Robbins, a video-store clerk.
And even Nana Goldberg, co-owner of the store with her father, Charles, didn't sound completely sold on the masks' value, at least when asked whether she planned to take any for herself.
"There are two camps. I didn't prepare for Y2K, either," she said. "I knew I was going to wake up the next morning and go to the Mummers. It's optimists and pessimists."
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By Jeff Gelles <i>
A new shipment of 500 gas masks arrived at the Original I. Goldberg military-surplus store on Chestnut Street yesterday, and though the protection they offered might be more talismanic than technological, a steady stream of customers was buying them.
Derek Connolly bought eight, paying $213.91, tax included. He said four masks were for him, his girlfriend, his mother and his stepfather, and the other four were for someone who works with his mother - the family worrier, who called to tell him that Goldberg's shipment had finally arrived.
"I don't really know how effective they are, but I can guess how effective it would be not to have one," said Connolly, 29, a construction worker who lives in Old City.
Like many other Americans, especially those close to the sites of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, Connolly is concerned about what the future holds. Feeding that anxiety were Attorney General John Ashcroft's warnings of a "clear and present danger" of further terrorist attacks. So were reports that some terror groups may have been seeking chemical and biological weapons.
That possibility was enough to spur Connolly.
"If your only objective is to kill as many people as you can, gas or biological weapons make sense. I can't do anything about biologicals, but maybe I can help a little with gas," he said.
Just how much he can be helped is doubtful.
Tom Harrelson, the store manager, said that the store received the masks from Germany but that, so far, he had been unable to find any documentation of what they were designed to filter.
"I'm thinking smoke, natural gas, tear gas, dust, things like that," Harrelson said. He conceded that there was no reason to think the masks would do any good in the event of an attack with a nerve gas such as sarin, which was used in a Japanese terrorist attack in 1995.
Nor is the protection indefinite, even if the masks' charcoal-filtration system does the job, Harrelson said. "I've been told [a canister lasts] four to eight hours, depending on the concentration in the air."
But those limitations weren't keeping buyers away at the Original I. Goldberg yesterday, any more than they kept customers away at surplus stores last week in the Philadelphia suburbs or around the country.
Nelson Price, owner of the Suburban Army-Navy store in East Norriton Township, said he had sold several hundred gas masks since the attacks in New York and Washington. The demand hit immediately, as soon as he opened for business Sept. 12.
"We sold out that day," he said. "Every day after the bombing I probably got between 40 and 50 and sold out within hours."
In recent days, he has not been able to get any masks - at any price.
Not everybody at the Original I. Goldberg store was interested. Jeff Robbins, 28, of West Philadelphia, walked right past the masks, which were on prominent display near the front door.
"They won't work for whatever purpose they're buying them for," said Robbins, a video-store clerk.
And even Nana Goldberg, co-owner of the store with her father, Charles, didn't sound completely sold on the masks' value, at least when asked whether she planned to take any for herself.
"There are two camps. I didn't prepare for Y2K, either," she said. "I knew I was going to wake up the next morning and go to the Mummers. It's optimists and pessimists."
</i>
<IMG SRC="http://home.att.net/~sunndoggy8/sunnysig1.jpg" width=300 height=80>
<font color="#0F00CD">~~".............................................."-~~</font color="#0F00CD">