A small white light in the dispatch room at Silver Spring Taxi Inc. lights up when drivers have a busy day. It’s glowed constantly since Oct. 2.
“We’ve been getting a lot of calls; no one wants to get on the bus, no one wants to walk anywhere,” said Jamila Bey, 20, a dispatcher. “People will call from a local shopping center just for a ride across the street.”
Bey got a call this week from a woman standing on the sidewalk at a Rockville, Md., grocery store.
“The lady was crying, seriously crying,” she said. “She needed a ride home, couldn’t get a friend. She said she was really scared to be outside.
“Me? I am terr-i-fied. I don’t even go outside anymore. I’m scared to walk out of my building. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
*
Overheard at a Maryland Wal-Mart on Monday evening as a man, a woman and a pint-sized kid grasped hands leaving the fluorescent-lit warehouse store into the dark parking lot.
The anxious-looking tyke groans: “I don’t want to get shot.”
The father barks at him: “Shut up.”
Mother: “We just have to walk faster.”
*
The heavy woods around the rolling greens at the Argyle Country Club in Silver Spring, Md., were alive with the sounds of helicopters and emergency sirens yesterday – but golfers kept teeing off.
“People feel the golf courses are a safe place; you’re not going to see a white van driving down the green,” said Pat Ryan, 30, an assistant golf pro.
“Golf is your own time to get away from what’s happening in the outside world. It’s an escape for a lot of people.
“It’s tough, but we’ll golf.”
*
In Washington, D.C., a tourism spokesperson said it was too soon to judge the fallout from the random murder spree.
Although school outings have fallen off, no noticeable convention cancellations are evident and “hotel occupancy is near 80 percent, which is near the pre-9/11 levels,” said Victoria Isley of the Washington D.C. Convention and Tourism Corp.