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| Much of Paris today still has police cars and ambulances. People have been asked to remain at home and to clear the streets. |
Yesterday was a Friday the thirteenth. I am generally not terribly superstitious, but over the years I have had some unusual bad luck on these days. I don't hide under the covers, but I have learned not to schedule surgeries for family members on these days, and not to transact business on them. I was uneasy yesterday, and so I played "catch up" on animal and farm tasks and did some Christmas gift planning.
Last evening as I finished spoon feeding my infant grandson, my husband called and asked if I had heard about France. I immediately turned on France24 to learn that six or seven sites in Paris and in a Northern suburb of Paris had been simaltaneously attacked by terrorists. I uttered a quick prayer for all of those caught in a terrorist nightmare.
Overnight, a lot of information was provided by France 24 and by Sky News. Regular news programming had been preempted. ISIS has claimed responsibility for these particularly barbaric cowardly attacks of civilians. As of the moment of the writing of this post, 129 are dead, a couple of hundred people are injured, and 80 people are in critical condition. Some people remain unaccounted for, as of this date. My thoughts are also with friends of ours who are in the security and anti-terror business and who find themselves in France at this time. As a result, there is a partial closure of the borders of France and what amounts to martial law in Paris and its outer suburbs. The French are rallying and providing overnight accomodations to those who were caught without transport home last evening when transportation venues were closed. They are also providing blood to the specific hospital which distributes blood products to the hospitals who require this.
Our prayers are with those who were injured or killed in these attacks last evening, and with those who witnessed them. Our prayers are also with the families of those killed, injured or missing. May God bless France in this very difficult time.
Prior posts concerning France:
http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2015/01/with-compassion-and-solidarity-for.html
