February 27, 2008
Know Your Airport
Threat Level Colors

Do you know your terrorist alert color chart?  Me neither.  Recently, Jan and I were wandering toward the appointed DIA gate, we had heeded the government’s advice about arriving two hours before flight departure and, as is the norm when the clock is on your side, breezed through check-in and security in a matter of moments.  Faced with over an hour to kill, we were mulling whether or not to inflict a terrorist attack on our digestive tract with an airport style fast food breakfast gut-bomb.  That discussion was interrupted by a blaring loudspeaker, “Attention travelers, airport security has been raised to level orange.  Please be aware of your surroundings and report any un-attended bag or briefcase to airport personnel.” 

“So where,” I wondered aloud, “does orange rank in the threat level color scheme?”  Is orange at the bottom, meaning we’re in a worry free zone or at the top, indicating passengers on today’s flight should be sure and leave a next of kin list with the gate lady.” 

“Beats me”, replied the person who promised to love, honor and take her computer out of its bag and place it in a separate tray while going shoeless through security.  “But I recall a security check when the level was yellow and the TSA folks confiscated an almost empty tube of toothpaste and today, the white shirted guy running my lane explained tweezers were a no-no that had to be left behind.” 

While we are indeed dealing with governmental thought processes, if such an animal exists, there has to be more to the terror color scale than yellow causes bad breath while orange results in shaggy eyebrows. 

Modern day airports are filled with signs, “Go Here”, “No Admittance”, “Tornado Shelter” (what?) but nowhere does one find even the simplest explanation of the security level color chart.  

It was Google to the rescue.  It seems the basement level on the threat level color scheme is green.  Even the most frequent of airport visitors can’t remember a time when the security level was announced as green but with a color chart, like everything else in life, one must start somewhere.   

Next is blue or according to TSA, “guarded”.  Come to think of it, like green, one struggles to remember ever hearing of a blue threat level.  Then, we get into familiar territory.  Yellow, we’re told, means “elevated.”  Elevated from what only the security geeks know but “elevated” it is.  Next in the Al Qaeda alert color sequence is orange. 

Please note, I am the one bringing Al Qaeda into the discussion.  Even though young Middle Eastern males have caused 99% of all airliner terrorist activity in the last decade, TSA goes out of their way to avoid racial profiling.  My mother, a lady born before Calvin Coolidge was in office, was required to make three passes through a Walker Field security line before being allowed to board a flight last year.  She thought it made no sense.  I eased her concerns explaining security officials must have known she was raised in that terrorist hotbed of Iowa. 

The pinnacle of TSA alerts is red meaning “extreme”.  I don’t recall red being mentioned over airport loudspeakers since 9/11. That would be bad for business. Code red would most likely make folks think twice about traveling.  It would also explain why there’s no color chart for airport food.