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ALERTS
We need more information
Red, orange, yellow, blue, green.

Sound like a box of crayons? Or maybe part of the color spectrum you learned in a science course?

While the colors are the same, they do more than produce white light.

They have actually caused a mad rush as people flocked to stores to buy plastic sheets and duct tape.

These colors, also known as the Homeland Security Advisory System, were created to “provide a comprehensive and effective means to disseminate information regarding the risk of terrorist acts to federal, state and local authorities and to the American people,” according to the Homeland Security Web site.

Or so the government thinks.

In essence, the colors do little more than send panicked people racing to a hardware store and leave the rest of us scratching our heads.

Examining the chart alone provides no information. The chart starts at green (low risk of terror activities), then moves to blue (guarded or “normal” risk), yellow (elevated or “significant” risk), orange (high risk) and finally ends at red (severe risk).

Minus a few “protective measures,” this is pretty much all the information the government is feeding us.

All the while, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge keep telling us to go about our daily lives. They can’t tell us why they decided to up the warning. They can’t really tell us what to do to prepare.

Maybe they should spend more time telling us what is going on than playing with colors.