Sunday, July 23, 2006

Good Morning, Haifa!

I was just woken again by the first siren of the day. Before I expressed that I stopped bothering to run into the hallway, but that isn't true anymore. After I saw more Haifa houses being damaged on TV, I realized that I should do what I can, even if it's minimal. If my house is hit, we're in big trouble. We don't have a "protected room" (mamad) and not enough time to run to the bomb shelter downstairs. The reason few people were killed from direct hits on their homes is because they weren't inside of them - they were either inside bomb shelters, had left the city, or were elsewhere. The sirens gave us a pretty good warning. Then the booms started - loud ones, and many of them. I've stopped bothering to count, because it doesn't really make a difference. We've starting saying "a lot of katyushot" or "just a few katyushot".
We're watching Israel's Channel 2 and they've just announced that two people have been killed by this rocket attack. CNN reported that the Technion, one of the two universities in Haifa, has been hit and there are wounded there. Nesher, a suburbian city of Haifa, was also hit. Avinoam's parents live in Nesher and heard the booms very loud. We recognize all the places shown on TV, but in general they're still not announcing direct locations.
I'm supposed to have my dentist appointment today (finally - it was delayed last week because of the situation). Now I don't know if it will be delayed again or not.

Updates: After I made my rounds to check on my friends, I realized that more people have left the city (although based on the traffic we faced yesterday coming back north, people are returning).
The dentist office just called me. My appointment has been cancelled again. I'm not concerned about my toothache because it's minor and manageable. But I've been told that if you don't care of those things at the beginning, you might need a root canal at the end.
On the news we just found out that one of the killed people was in his car. He was driving on a main street that we often drive on when a katyusha hit in front of him. The little metal balls from the katyusha pierced the car and killed him.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Carmia, Get out of there...go south....Not Safe.....


I suppose to take my exam soon...u know which one, THE EXAM....I can't even sleep that well...i'm trying to contact my family in Haifa but we haven't been very successful, and also a good friend of mine which seems to have disappeared. Thank you for keeping this channel of communication and insight into what is going on in Haifa, even though its quite horror. Really, Carmia, get out...the houses in Haifa are not build to sustain attacks of these kinds.

Anyway, just know that i'm thinking about you. I hope u're not totally upset for doing Aleeya...much easier to hide in Safe America, right...good night

Anonymous said...

Carmia, please get out of harms way !
Be safe first.

Anonymous said...

I've been in haifa since 1993, I have personally have had 3 near misses with suicide bombers (maxim, moriah & the gas station near the grand canyon) then the chemical weapons scares when the iraq war was beginning in 2003, so I think we haifaim can survive a few missiles.

Stay safe

Anonymous said...

carmia, everyone is right you should find a host family.

Yaakova said...

Please don't stay in Haifa. If you can't find a host family, contact me through my blog and I'll help you find one. (But I have a feeling you already know plenty of people who would love to host you!) Please just leave Haifa. Take your laptop, and blog from wherever you go!