Last week, President Bush increased the homeland security threat level to “high”–orange on the color-coded scale.

And although Americans are being told to “go about their lives,” many fear the possibility of a terrorist attack.

In the case of an attack that contaminates the air, the Department of Homeland Security has advised citizens to buy, “duct tape and heavyweight garbage bags or plastic sheeting that can be used to seal windows and doors.”

But it seems locally, consumers have not changed their buying patterns.

At the Norwalk Target, workers insist that duct tape sales have not increased.

With good reason, some students feel.

Vince Bailie, firefighting, says that he will not be purchasing additional duct tape.

“I haven’t changed my lifestyle,” he says, “I just keep going about business. It’s scary, but what am I going to do?”

Heather Hufenbach, art and design takes a slightly different approach. “I don’t watch the news. I only hear what people are saying. It’s depressing.”

Bailie agrees. “The news is too influential. They blow everything out of proportion.”

There have been arguments that assumed that because Los Angeles is so far away from where the 9/11 attacks were, there is less panic to be prepared here.

Bailie, however, has a strong tie to the initial terrorist attacks.

“I was supposed to be on one of those planes,” he says, “I was coming home from Massachusetts. I missed it by a week. I was going to stay an extra week but I decided not to.”

Yet he, like many others, has decided not to alter his everyday life by giving in to fear.

It seems that this is a popular wave of thinking.

The Department of Homeland Security has created a web site designed to help citizens become more prepared for an emergency.

On the home page sit the words: “Don’t be afraid…be ready.”

While preparedness is the government’s solution to pre-war anxieties, ignorance seems to be the method of choice for many students.

Hufenbach asserts that not only does she not watch the news, but she feels there should be less of it.

She feels that many news outlets are simply supplying the terrorists with additional information.

“They give everything away,” she says.