On 9/11, I didn't know if it was safer to pick (then) 7yo up from school or leave her there. I knew some Federal buildings evacuated. I knew the admin considered evacuating the campus - besides being Bush's home state, one of his daughters attended UT. But at that horrible moment, no place felt safe. If the Twin Towers could die, nothing and no one could save us. We only held panic.
I listened to the advice about not letting your kids see the images repeatedly, the falling towers, the people, the fires. So around 9/13, I switched from my habitual NPR to a classical music station. 7yo's eyes got huge and wide. She almost started to cry, and I had to pull over and hold her little shaking body, because if the news was so terrible that her Daddy wouldn't listen, then the world had become too frightening to face.